


you-know-what

by orphan_account



Category: i dont even know - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:23:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 196,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1.**

It’s six o’clock in the morning, and Louis’ cat is on his face.  
  
This, Louis thinks, is probably a metaphor for the state of his life. Perhaps. He’s not up to contemplating it further yet. He hasn’t even had his tea.  
  
“Off,” he says, the sound muffled by a mouthful of fur. He rolls over and dumps Duchess onto the floor, and she makes an unhappy noise as she slinks out of his room, probably to go throw up in his shoes out of spite.  
  
Right. First day of the term, then. Starting the year off with cat hair in his mouth.  
  
He hauls himself out of bed and puts a kettle on, almost tripping over the stack of books and scripts by his bedroom door before he finds his glasses. He should really finish going through all that shit eventually. They’ve been piling up for almost a year now, odds and ends that he always means to get around to but never does. Zayn calls it his bird’s nest. Zayn can fuck off, really.  
  
It’s been a boring summer, like the one before it and the one before that. He read a book. He bought a new set of bath towels. He spent three days marathoning trashy American reality television on his laptop and getting food delivered to his flat. He definitely did not get asked on any dates.  
  
He leans against his kitchen counter and stares at his collection of mismatched mugs and tries not to think too hard about it.  
  
He turns the shower on and leaves it running as he makes his tea, having learned years ago how to arrange his morning routine around the ten minutes it takes for the dodgy water heater in his building to kick in. He’s lived here ever since he moved to Manchester when he was twenty-two, and it’s full of the last three years of his life, the curtains from his mum and the programmes on his bookshelf. He’s managed to slowly accumulate a respectable collection of furniture, all of which actually matches. It’s nice enough, even if he can’t do anything about that place on the living room wall where Niall got too drunk and pitched a beer bottle at it.  
  
When he’s finished his tea and dried his hair, he pulls on some pants and pads over to his closet. Dressing for work is always a bit tricky. He’s not like Zayn, who effortlessly charms all of the mothers (and some of the fathers) just by existing. Zayn can get away with having an edgy haircut and dressing like a hipster librarian with a motorbike fetish because he’s  _Zayn_. And anyway, Zayn’s an English teacher; fashion sense just makes him seem more sensitive and artistic. Louis teaches drama, which comes with different stereotypes. There’s a fine line between artistic and camp, and wearing leather boots would take Louis right over it.  
  
So it’s braces and trousers and dress shoes for Louis, pressed shirts with the sleeves rolled up, the occasional sensible jumper when it’s cold enough. It’s a classic look, and he takes pride in it. It takes time to get his hair to that state of artfully windswept, though, so he has to set his alarm for six and try not to let the ungodly hour send him into a homicidal rage for the rest of the day.  
  
As much as he hates getting up early and spending most of his evenings marking, he likes his job. Well, most of the time he likes his job. On the days when nobody asks him for the ten millionth time to explain something he’s already gone over or breaks one of his lighting trusses right before a dress rehearsal, he likes his job. He likes working with kids, likes putting on shows and getting paid to talk about theater all day.  
  
“You like your job,” he tells his reflection in the side of the toaster, waiting for his bread to brown.  
  
He leaves Duchess with a bowl of food and a pat on the head as recompense for kicking her out of bed earlier, ignoring the icy glare she gives him in return. Then it’s a final check in the mirror and out the door, bag slung over his shoulder. He spends the drive to school contemplating what the year might have in store for him and hoping to God for anything other than a repeat of last year’s flu pandemic. He had to burn a set of of 800 thread count sheets. It was a dark time for everyone.  
  
His regular parking space awaits him when he pulls into the carpark. He’s come back during the break for meetings and workshops and days of preparing his classroom, but it still feels like he hasn’t been back in months. The same brick buildings, the same football pitch, the same scuffed bumper of a French teacher’s car staring back at him. Another year. Nothing at all has changed.  
  
He happens to catch sight of Zayn as he turns down his hallway, mostly just a quiff and a cloud of cardigan-wearing gloom coming down the hall with a giant book tucked under one elbow. He’s nursing a thermos of coffee and still seems to be half asleep, and Louis really can’t be expected to let that grumpy face go unharassed.  
  
“First day of school!” Louis says brightly, cuffing him on the shoulder as he passes. “Perk up, sunshine!”  
  
Zayn scowls at him, and Louis smiles back, pleased that at least one person in the world hates mornings more than he does. “Go fuck yourself,” Zayn mumbles.  
  
“Now, now, mind your language,” Louis teases. “We are the moulders of tomorrow, remember?”  
  
“I’m going to mould this book into your face,” Zayn says.  
  
“Love you too,” Louis says, and they split apart, Zayn off to the stairs and Louis continuing down the hall to his classroom.  
  
He and Zayn came on staff the same year and became best mates almost immediately through the shared terror of their first year in the faculty and a mutual appreciation of each other’s fashion sense amidst a sea of tartan and beige. Zayn started out as a teaching assistant, but took over the spot when the previous English teacher retired. They’ve since earned a bit of a reputation for mischief, which Louis’ not sure is really fair. So maybe they’ve been known administer field sobriety tests to random students in the hallway, and maybe they accidentally-on-purpose planted the idea of putting glitter in the air vents as a graduation prank. They both have sound alibis for the time the assistant headmaster’s car wound up on the roof, and even if they had hypothetically been involved, it would have been all Zayn’s idea. Hypothetically.  
  
Their second year, Niall got hired fresh out of uni as the assistant orchestra director, and he fell in with the two of them right away. He’s a good sort, relaxed as can be and always reliable, though he’s generally more likely to sit and laugh at their schemes than participate in them.  
  
Louis knows they’re generally regarded as the “cool” teachers, the youngest ones and the ones least likely to write you up for a uniform infraction. He also knows that Zayn is “the fit one,” the one whose classes are always anxiously anticipated at the start of every new year. It’s understandable. Louis honestly pities any unsuspecting, pubescent teen who shows up for their first day of school and is confronted with Mr. Malik reading Wordsworth with his soulful eyes and dramatic cheekbones.  
  
Zayn’s eyes, soulful or not, are irrelevant now, because he’s got a full day of trying to keep a bunch of teenagers from slipping into a vegetative state while he goes over syllabi. His first year he’d been given the typical arrangement of teaching his class in the theatre, but if there’s one thing Louis needs it’s his own space, and after a year of nagging the administration and being interrupted by assemblies and spelling competitions, he’d been granted his own classroom. It’s not much, but at least it’s his.  
  
That should really be the tagline of his life, to be honest.  
  
The students start filtering in slowly, small clusters that settle into desks at random. Louis notices a lot of familiar faces. He’s been around long enough to have seen most of them in the halls at some point or another, and many of the ones who end up in his classes have already been in at least one of his productions. By the time the bell rings, there are only a few he doesn’t recognize, new students or ones that managed to fly below his radar. Excellent. Always fun the first day. Nobody ever really knows what to expect from him.  
  
Louis shuts the door and hops up on his desk, sitting cross-legged in front of the class.  
  
“All right,” Louis says, adjusting his glasses. “Let’s skip the part where I tell you good morning like I’m not already on my third cuppa and you say it back like you’re happy to be wearing ties this early in the morning.”  
  
A nervous sort of laugh ripples through the classroom, and Louis smiles. He forgets sometimes that he’s actually quite good at this.  
  
“As most of you already know, my name is Mr. Tomlinson,” he goes on. “Before anyone asks, I’m from Doncaster, I’m a Capricorn, I enjoy long walks to the vending machine on the third floor, and yes, McDonnell, I’m expecting your mum to send toffee again for the night rehearsals this year.”  
  
Another laugh. Louis feels a bit more of the tension ease out of the room.  
  
“I’m sure some of you are thinking this course will be an easy way to get high marks without having to do much work. It’s okay, nothing to be ashamed of. I did it myself when I was your age,” Louis says mildly. “But I regret to inform you that if you’re expecting to pass this class without ever cracking a book or doing your coursework, you are tragically mistaken. We’ll be covering some of the basics of theater, learning about some of the great playwrights, practicing acting and improvisation as well as some writing. It’s going to be fun. I swear. If you don’t have any fun all year, you have full permission to smack me ‘round the head.”  
  
Ice sufficiently broken, Louis passes out packets listing important dates for the term and explaining his marking policy. The rest of the day goes by in the same vein, and come lunchtime, Louis is feeling rather pleased with his work indeed.  
  
There’s more than one teacher’s lounge in the school, but one in particular is on the same hallway as Louis’ classroom, so naturally he claimed it as his by the end of his first month. It’s the smallest of all of them, just a table with four chairs and a small adjoining toilet. Small, but definitely good enough, and everyone in the faculty knows that lunches there belong to Louis, Zayn, and Niall.  
  
Louis thinks, as they sit laughing about their plans for the year around their own personal table, that his gift for expanding into the space around him is probably his most useful attribute. Starfishing, he calls it. He is a starfish.  
  
“Obviously I’m keeping the spring musical,” Louis tells them, “but I’m thinking about doing a Shakespeare in the fall. What do you think?”  
  
“I think it sounds like you’re going to make me help you with two shows instead of one,” Niall says.  
  
“There’s a good man,” Louis says, patting Niall on the back. “Thank you for volunteering.”  
  
“You’re going to consult me on this, right?” Zayn cuts in, giving Louis a look over his coffee. “You’re not going to let a bunch of fifteen-year-olds butcher the poor bard, are you?”  
  
“Believe it or not, Zayn, I know a thing or two about Shakespeare,” Louis says. “Just because I don’t spend my life analyzing sonnets doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”  
  
Zayn laughs and elbows him. “You might be an idiot.”  
  
“What’s on the reading list this year, Zayn?” Louis says. “ _Fahrenheit 451?_ ‘It was a pleasure to burn...’”  
  
“Ha ha,” Zayn deadpans while Niall snorts into his lunch. “Fireman jokes. You’re hilarious.”  
  
The rest of the first week rolls by smoothly, and Louis starts to settle back into his work routine. It’s nice to feel like he has some kind of purpose again after months of treading water. For the most part, his students seem genuinely enthusiastic about the more hands-on parts of the class already, and they only groan a little when he assigns them reading over the weekend. All in all, it’s a good start, and when Louis settles down on Friday evening with Duchess and a takeaway, he’s not unhappy with himself.  
  
It’s his life, and it’s mostly quiet nights alone and the places where bitterness made him harder years ago, but it’s all right, and he does his best to ignore the stagnant feeling in his stomach.  
  


✖

  
  
  
Louis isn’t sure why, in a world that contains iPhones, basic sound equipment still requires enough cords to strangle an average-size ox. Surely this should have been sorted out by now. Surely there are scientists who could be using their science to fix this. Surely that is what science is  _for._  
  
Niall brought the speakers by, wheeling them in on the AV cart, and then returned with a giant cardboard box. “Anything you need should be in there somewhere,” he said, probably perfectly aware of the hell he was casting Louis into. The bastard.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Louis is still digging through the box, looking for the cord to connect his laptop to the speakers. He’d planned to play some songs from _La Boheme_  and _Rent_  so his students could compare the two interpretations, and he would be damned if they were going to listen to opera through his shitty laptop speakers. Some things are sacred.  
  
Some sacred lesson plans are going to have to be scrapped, though, if he can’t find the goddamned cord he needs. The box is half as tall as Louis himself, and he’s bent nearly double, hunting through the dozens of seemingly-identical black wires that remain.  
  
After an eternity, he spots what he thinks is the right cable, all the way at the bottom. Thank the sweet USB-compatible baby Jesus. Holding his glasses on with one hand, he reaches, reaches, brushes it with his fingertips, and…  
  
…loses his balance, his torso falling into the box, his legs flailing above him before tipping over and carrying him through what is almost certainly the least graceful somersault of all time. He lies there for a moment, sprawled on his back, his upper body and head still inside the box and covered with speaker cables. The cord he needs is draped over his face. Mocking him.  
  
“Um, you all right in there?” says a voice, obviously holding back laughter.  
  
There is a person in his classroom. A witness to his current state. Louis stares at the roof of his cardboard cube of shame and considers remaining in this box for the rest of his life.  
  
No. This will not do. A Tomlinson never admits defeat.  
  
“Yes, perfectly all right!” he says cheerfully. “That was entirely intentional.” He begins to shimmy out of the box with what he assumes can only be the utmost agility. “Gymnastics, you know. Working on my floor routine.”  
  
Free of his recyclable prison, he looks up to see who has caught him in this predicament.  
  
Oh.  _Oh._  
  
Louis is struck with the sudden urge to light himself on fire. His would-be rescuer is a young man, which Louis had known from the voice, but he had not been prepared for this. Dark curly hair, green eyes, and a smile that Louis likes so much that he feels slightly violated. And no one should look that good in a plain white t-shirt and cargo shorts. He’s leaning against the doorway to Louis’ classroom, staring at him.  
  
Louis blinks. He’s still there. Self-immolation is looking more and more appealing. At least Zayn could flirt with that hot fireman he’s obsessed with over Louis’ smoldering remains. Some good could come of this yet.  
  
Louis has never seen this person before in his life. He is sure of that. He would remember.  
  
He pulls up his braces, which have fallen on one side, and fumbles for words that won’t make him sound like a complete idiot. What comes out of his mouth is, “Who the fuck are you?”  
  
Smooth, Tomlinson. Very nice.  
  
The newly-discovered bane of his life just laughs—Jesus, he’s got  _dimples_ —and pushes away from the doorframe. “I’m Harry,” he says. “Was passing by, heard a crash, figured you might need a hand,” he continues, holding out said hand to Louis. Louis grabs ahold, and Harry pulls him up.  
  
Somewhere between the ground and standing upright, Louis realises that his legs are entirely entangled in cords, and he can do nothing but look on in horror as his momentum carries him directly into Harry’s chest. It’s a very nice chest. Broad, solid, warm. Oh,  _God._  He should have stayed in the box. He hadn’t fully appreciated his time in the box. He had been so young, so foolish.  
  
Harry just laughs again and holds Louis upright by his waist with one hand, and fuck, Louis hates him already.  
  
“Hold still, we’ll get you sorted,” he says. He drops to his knees and gets to work untangling the cables around Louis’ legs. Louis stares stoically at the wall and refuses to contemplate the state of his life. There is an extremely attractive stranger kneeling at eye level with his crotch. No. Nope. Not going to process this information.  
  
“There we go, almost free,” Harry says, rising to his feet with the end of a cord in one hand. “Give us a twirl, then,” he says, tugging slightly on the cable.  
  
Louis complies, his ears burning, and pirouettes his way to freedom. If he’s going to be made to look ridiculous, he’s not going to do it halfway.  
  
Harry outright giggles. “You’ve got the gold medal in the bag, I think.”  
  
Louis gives an exaggerated bow. “You’re clearly a man of taste.” He pauses a moment, shifting his weight. “Um, thanks for your help. Do you think you could be convinced to, er, never tell anyone about this? Ever.”  
  
Harry just smiles his horrible smile. “Not a problem. I won’t reveal your routine to the Russians. You need any help with the rest of this?” he asks, gesturing to the audio equipment. “I’m handy with a speaker.”  
  
The idea of spending another full minute in his presence makes Louis want to rip off his own skin. “Oh, no, I think I’m all right, thanks,” he says hurriedly. “It was nice to meet you, Harry.”  
  
“Nice to meet you too, Mr…” Harry trails off.  
  
Louis briefly considers giving a fake name before remembering it’s still written across the damn board from the first day of school. “Tomlinson. Louis,” he adds, holding out his hand.  
  
Harry’s grin widens. “Louis,” he says, grasping his hand. “I’ll see you around.” And then he’s gone.  
  
Louis lets out the breath he’s apparently been holding the entire time, and turns toward the box to find—or re-find, he supposes—the cord he needs. This is all Niall’s fault.  
  
He nearly trips over himself again when a thought strikes.  _He asked for my last name, not my first._  Oh God. Oh no.  
  
At lunch, Zayn shrugs off his concerns and continues shoveling chips into his mouth. “He doesn’t have to be a student. And anyway, the way you described him? Sounds way too hot to be a teenager.”  
  
Louis keeps his head buried in his hands. “Maybe he’s just freakishly developed.” He peers out between his fingers. “Who knows what the hormones in our food are doing to the youth, Zayn.” He had been ogling a student. A child. He had been contemplating the pectoral firmness of a _child._  
  
Zayn reaches out and snatches a piece of grilled chicken from Louis’ salad. Louis makes an outraged noise and bats at his hand, but to no avail. “Hey, I’m just protecting you from the hormones, man,” Zayn says smugly, before popping the chicken into his mouth. “But back to how you’re probably going to prison.”  
  
Louis groans and drops face-first into his salad.  
  
He doesn’t see the possibly hormonally-overdosed teen for two days, and is beginning to think that he must have imagined the whole thing in a concussed haze. Head injuries could cause hallucinations, right? Of course they could. And you probably can’t go to prison over hallucinations.  
  
He should have known his luck would run out eventually. He’s walking to his car Friday afternoon, contemplating whether it’s going to be a red or white wine kind of night, when a football comes careening into his field of vision and hits his car squarely on the back bumper.  
  
Normally he’d be angry, but as it is he just slumps slightly in defeat. He’d probably be able to summon up more outrage if his car weren’t such a piece of shit. Or if he weren’t so exhausted.  
  
“Sorry! Sorry,” a voice says behind him. He does his best to put some energy into a withering glare as he turns around, but his face drops into something closer to “cornered animal” when he sees who’s approaching.  
  
“Hey, Louis!” Harry says, all smiles and sweat. “I’m really sorry about that, the lads don’t know what they’re doing quite yet.” The lads. Louis takes him in. Trainers. Football shorts. Another thrice-damned white t-shirt. Christ in heaven, he’s on the football team.  
  
He starts composing headlines in his head.  _JOCK SHOCK! Local teacher huge pervert, shunned forever._  
  
“It’s… it’s fine,” he chokes out.  
  
“Not really, since it’s my job to make sure they don’t embarrass themselves,” Harry says, picking up the football. It’s only then that Louis sees the silver whistle hanging from a cord around his neck, bouncing against his chest when he stands back up.  
  
“You’re,” Louis swallows, “you’re a new P.E. teacher, then?”  
  
“Sort of,” Harry says. “Technical title is ‘assistant instructor.’ Mostly my job is showing up in the afternoons to help with the footy. But yeah, I’m supposed to keep that lot from kicking balls into the carpark, so feel free to yell at me.”  
  
Fireworks are going off in Louis’ head. “Ah, it’s not a big deal.” Marching bands in his brain. “My car’s majority dents at this point anyway, one more won’t hurt.” Harry laughs. Louis isn’t going to prison.  
  
“I didn’t ask earlier, what do you teach?” Harry says, tossing the football in the air and catching it.  
  
“Drama,” Louis says, tracking the ball’s movements with his eyes. “The, um, incident you witnessed earlier was part of an attempt to interest my students in opera. Didn’t quite work out.”  
  
“So are you in charge of putting on plays and all that?” Harry asks, still tossing the football.  
  
“Yeah, that’s me. Some of the other teachers help out though, with the set and all that. Niall Horan usually ends up being our sound guy for the musical.”  
  
Harry’s face lights up. “Niall the orchestra director? Niall’s brilliant! I’m actually going to be helping him out with some AV stuff this term on the side.” He finally catches the football and puts it under one arm. “To be honest, I don’t have much on my plate during the afternoons, so I’m pleased to have something to do.”  
  
Louis smiles as if his to-do list for the entire year hasn’t just been rearranged around his afternoons. “Well I’m hopeless with electronics, so I’m glad to have someone besides Niall to harass for help.”  
  
Harry looks like he’s about to say something, but a voice comes from the football pitch. “Styles! Did that football roll to Siberia? Hurry up!”  
  
He turns toward the pitch and shouts back “Coming!” He looks back at Louis, walking backwards. “Well, feel free to harass me anytime, Louis Tomlinson,” he says with a cheeky grin before turning around and jogging back to the pitch.  
  
Louis holds off a minor panic attack long enough to admire the view.  
  
It’s not until he gets home that he thinks to text Zayn.  
  
 _he’s not a student. u r officially still crazier than me._  
  


✖

  
  
  
It seems like there’s some kind of cosmic force at work here, because Louis keeps running into Harry over the next few days. When he stops by the front office to pick up some forms, Harry’s there, posting a schedule of football matches on the bulletin board by the desk. When he drops in on Niall after school to ask about some sheet music, Harry’s just hanging out in the percussion storage closet, fucking around on some tenor drums.  
  
They make friendly conversation every time, never much awkwardness between them. Louis would chalk it up to the fact that saving someone from being strangled to death by a box full of wires goes a long way in breaking the ice, but it feels like more than that. There’s a natural kind of ease there. Louis hasn’t really clicked with a person right away in years, but every time he runs into Harry, he can feel pieces falling into place.   
  
Louis is just on his way to buy a drink from his favorite vending machine, the one on the third floor, when it happens again. He’s minding his own business, really. All he wanted was a nice refreshing beverage, not to be blindsided with the sight of Harry in a v-neck with the sleeves rolled up, one arm braced against the vending machine.  
  
Harry is attractive. Harry is very, very attractive. This is not news. When is he going to stop feeling like he’s been concussed every time he sees him? Is this some kind of psychophysical conditioning from the first time they met? Does he have brain damage?  
  
Harry is so attractive he makes Louis feel like he’s got brain damage. This is not a good situation.  
  
Louis has half a mind to turn around and flee back down the stairs to the safety of his starfishy home, but he finds himself powerless to do so, propelled mindlessly forward by some force he doesn’t understand. Brain damage. Definitely brain damage.  
  
“Hello again,” Louis says as he draws up within earshot, tone deceptively casual. Harry looks up at the sound of his voice and grins.  
  
“I’m starting to think you’re stalking me,” Harry says, mischief in his eyes.  
  
Louis laughs. “You’ve caught me. I like to attach myself to people who remind me of a time when I humiliated myself over AV equipment. It’s a hobby of mine.”  
  
“I see,” Harry says, still grinning. “Out of curiosity, would another hobby of yours happen to be getting crisps unstuck from machines? Because I’m sort of out of money and that was supposed to be my lunch.”  
  
Louis manages to pull his eyes away from Harry’s face to assess the scene and, yes, there’s a packet of crisps lodged up high in the machine.  
  
“Ah, yes,” Louis says. “This one is a bit dodgy. Best food selection of the lot around here, but very moody as well. You’ve got to have some finesse with it.”  
  
“Okay,” Harry says. “Show me.”  
  
Louis has done this exact routine dozens of times on his own, but it has never really occurred to him how ridiculous it actually looks until Harry’s standing there, watching him expectantly. Luckily, Louis has a great deal of experience taking shelter behind ridiculousness. He grabs the machine with both hands, gives it a few hard shakes, kicks the bottom left corner, and then slams his hip into the right side.  
  
The packet of crisps falls down with a sound of quiet defeat.  
  
“You’re  _amazing,”_ Harry says gratefully, and Louis can do nothing but smile dumbly and step aside to let Harry retrieve his food.  
  
“Is that really all you’re having for lunch?” Louis asks him.  
  
Harry shrugs. “I’ve got to go to a coach’s meeting in an hour. Didn’t really feel like going all the way back to my flat just to turn around and leave again. Figured I’d just go eat in my car or something.”  
  
“That’s rubbish,” Louis says, speaking before he even realises he’s come to a decision. “You’re one of us now. Come sit with me.”  
  
Harry’s face lights up before Louis has a chance to consider backpedaling. “Yeah, all right. Have you got a lounge? I’ve never actually been in one of those.”  
  
“Oh, Harry,” Louis says. “We’ve much to teach you about the ways of the world.”  
  


**Z**

  
  
  
“I swear to God, if you come out here in anything leather, I am locking you in a supply closet,” Louis is shouting.  
  
Zayn pulls a face at the door, knowing Louis is sitting on the other side with his salad, taking up as much space as possible at the lounge’s only table with Niall and that fit footy coach he’s made friends with.  _With whom_ he’s made friends. God, the thought of this afternoon has already got him so flustered he’s dangling his prepositions.  
  
He meets his own eyes in the mirror of the tiny bathroom and shrugs his leather jacket on over his undershirt, smoothing out the collar. He’s finally got his hair just right, artfully disheveled quiff like it happened by accident, and he knows how good his arse looks in these trousers. Right. Okay, boots on, stuff the cardigan in the bag, and then a final once-over before he’s ready.  
  
“Should I wear the glasses?” he yells back through the door, frowning at his reflection. “I want to look, like, smart and adult, but I don’t know. Are they too hipster-y?”  
  
“Zayn, darling, that man is so oblivious you could sashay up to him wearing gold lamé shorts and he’d just thank you for coming to the assembly,” Louis tells him. “Now come out before you sprain something. I know you’re in there pouting at yourself in the mirror.”  
  
Zayn sighs. Louis isn’t wrong on either count. In the end, he decides to leave the glasses on. They sort of balance out the whole rocker look, like,  _yes, I am edgy and mysterious, but I also read Byron and enjoy expensive cheeses._  
  
He scoops up his duffle bag and opens the door, and Louis immediately throws down his fork.  
  
 _“Christ,”_  Louis moans. Next to him, Niall lets out a wolf whistle.  
  
“Don’t start,” Zayn says. “Either of you.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Louis says, kneading his temples with his fingers. “I’m just having war flashbacks to the last time I had to spend my afternoon trying to contain a teenage sex riot because of this shit. Are you  _trying_ to get arrested?”  
  
“It’s not that bad,” Zayn mumbles, sinking into his chair.  
  
Louis scoffs. “You look like you fell out of a music video.”  
  
“You know what day it is,” Zayn says.  
  
“That’s no excuse!”  
  
“What day is it?” the football coach—Harry, Zayn thinks—says, squinting between Louis and Zayn over his bag of crisps.  
  
“Fire Safety Awareness Day,” he, Louis, and Niall say in unison, Louis with an air of dread and Niall through a mouthful of chips. Harry just stares at them.  
  
“You see, dear Harry,” Louis says, “when a man loves another man very, very much—”  
  
“Shut up!” Zayn says. He can feel his ears going hot.  
  
“I was just going to tell the story!” Louis says.  
  
“Don’t,” Zayn says. “You tell it wrong.”  
  
“I do not!” Louis says, doing his best to look deeply affronted. He throws a wink toward Harry, who bites back a grin. He doesn’t seem to react otherwise, though, and Zayn is briefly thankful that, even if Louis is a trivialising arsehole, he doesn’t make friends with homophobic dicks. “I tell it with the drama and theatricality it so richly deserves, as is my gift as a purveyor of the arts.”  
  
“Who's the one with the book deal, here, you or me? Anyway, you make it sound stupid!” Zayn says. He looks down, fingering the handle of his mug. He spent too long in the bathroom. His coffee’s gone cold. “It’s not stupid.”  
  
“All right then,” Louis says. “You tell it.”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry agrees. He drops his elbows on the table and props his chin up on his hands, crisps completely forgotten, blinking at Zayn expectantly.  
  
Zayn takes care to heave his best long-suffering sigh, lest anyone catch on to the fact that he basically spends most of his life waiting for someone to bring up the subject. It’s his favorite story to tell, and he knows Louis is going to call him out on it if he doesn’t start now.  
  
“Well,” Zayn begins, “it started about a year ago. It was—”  
  
“The end of September!” Louis interrupts. “The first crisp chill in the air seemed to speak of new—”  
  
 _“I’m telling the story!”_  
  
“Right, sorry,” Louis says, grinning across the table at him, “carry on.”  
  
“Anyway,” Zayn continues. “It was about a year ago. I had borrowed this ancient Yeats book from the library—you know, the poet? So I returned it, and a week later I realised I’d left this photo of my mum stuck in it, so I went to the library to try to get it back out, only the book was gone. They’d started running out of shelf space, so they’d sold a bunch of books to make room for new ones, yeah? And somebody’d bought the book, and they’d paid in cash so I couldn’t even find their name to try to get it back.  
  
“A couple of months later, I was just sitting around my apartment watching telly when somebody knocked on the door. I almost didn’t open it because I wasn’t expecting anyone. I don’t know why I answered the door, but in the end I did. And there was just this... _man.”_  
  
Zayn can feel himself starting to smile now, not at any of them but at a fixed point high on the wall opposite him and the memory of a warm hand and a crinkled up smile. He knows himself, knows his brain and knows that he could wax poetic about Liam for hours if anyone would let him. He once got drunk and spent the entire night hunched over Louis’ coffee table rhapsodising, half sloppy poetry quotes and half long-winded descriptions of the shape of Liam’s lips. Louis has never fully recovered from what he claims was a “traumatic life event” and still flinches any time anyone says the word  _supple_. Zayn’s learned to try to keep most of it reined in, even if it is his own personal ongoing literary masterpiece.  
  
He pulls the memory of that night up again for the millionth time. By now it almost feels frayed at the edges, worn in and comfortable, himself barefoot in bleach stained track bottoms and Liam in the dim light of the hallway, collar of his t-shirt pulled too far over on one side.  
  
“He was  _gorgeous,”_  Zayn tells them. “These big brown eyes that were just like, you could tell he was the nicest person on the planet just from looking at them. Just standing on my doorstep in jeans and a t-shirt, smiling at me like we’d known each other forever, and he hands me the picture of my mum. Says he bought the book a few months ago but didn’t find the picture until last week, and he thought I might like it back, so he went to the library and got my name and address from their records. And I just sort of... gaped at him until he shoved the picture into my hand and managed to get my head sorted enough to thank him before he left, and then he was gone, and I didn’t realise until ten minutes later that I hadn’t asked his name. Literally the perfect man showed up on my doorstep—gorgeous, nice, reads fucking  _Yeats_ —and I just let him walk away like an idiot.  
  
“And then, right before Christmas hols, a transformer blew right in front of the school and the fire department came. They sent one of the blokes in to check to make sure no students were hurt, and it was him. In full fireman gear. And he remembered me. Stopped what he was doing and went out of his way to come talk to me, shook my hand, apologized for not introducing himself before, told me his name was Liam Payne.”  
  
“And then,” Louis puts in, “you decided that the best way to his heart is to spend the rest of your life creating small emergencies so you have to call the fire department, instead of asking him to dinner like a sane person.”  
  
“It sounds worse than it is when you put it like that!” Zayn says, dropping his eyes to glare at Louis. “I don’t even know if he likes men yet! This, this is  _destiny_. This is my _Pride and Prejudice,_  all right, and I only get one shot at it, and I’m not about to fuck it up by going for it too early. I’m just, you know, nudging destiny along a bit.”  
  
“You could also fuck it up by giving him the impression that you’re an arsonist. Generally a turn-off for a person who saves people from fires for a living,” Louis says. “Jane Austen never tried to cause a chemical explosion in the science lab.”  
  
“You can’t prove that was me,” Zayn says. “Look, I’m just saying, there’s no way this was all a coincidence. One day everything is going to fall into place, and it’ll just happen perfectly, and okay, maybe I have to have a cig under a smoke detector or two for that to happen. I’m only a man, Louis. Who am I to argue with destiny?”  
  
“Holy shit,” Harry speaks up finally. And then he leans forward in his seat and says, “How can I help?”  
  
“Oh God,” Louis groans, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. “Don’t  _encourage_  him!”  
  
“But this is brilliant, though!” Harry says. “Besides, didn’t you hear? I’m not encouraging him, I’m encouraging  _destiny_ , you scrooge.”  
  
“I’m not a scrooge,” Louis huffs, “I’m a realist.”  
  
“You are, though! You’re Ebenezer Tomlinson,” Zayn agrees with laugh, and Harry laughs too. Louis is looking at Zayn like he’d like to strangle him with his scarf, which just makes Zayn laugh harder.  
  
“The scroogiest,” Harry adds.  
  
“I like this one,” Zayn says, extending a fist to Harry, and Harry doesn’t miss a beat before bumping his own knuckles against it. “I think we’ll get on just fine.”  
  
“Great, now I’ve got two daft romantics getting feelings all over the place,” Louis sighs. “This won’t do at all. Niall, tell me you still don’t give a fuck about anything but where your next meal's coming from.”  
  
“I think you’re all mad,” Niall says with a shrug. “You too, Louis. You’re mad for caring so much.”  
  
“Shove off, Horan.”  
  
Niall just shrugs again and goes back to his chips.  
  
“Anyway, as I was saying before I was ruthlessly betrayed by everyone in this room,” Louis says, adjusting his glasses with what he must think is utmost dignity and switching his attention back to Harry, “the point of all this is that once a term there’s Fire Safety Awareness Day, and they send a couple of firemen to come talk to the school about not setting your mum’s drapes on fire or whatever—don’t get any ideas, Zayn— _ow!”_  
  
Zayn just grins as Louis makes a production of rubbing his shin where Zayn kicked it under the table. Justice served.  
  
“They always send Liam because he’s so good with the students,” Zayn tells Harry. “He’s _charming.”_  
  
“He’s hot,” Louis says. “They’re almost as bad over him as they are over you.”  
  
“Can’t blame them really,” Zayn says.  
  
“I don’t know if that was a reference to your fireman or your own vanity,” Louis says, “but either way, ugh.”  
  
“You’re just as vain as I am and you know it,” Zayn says. “Don’t make me dig your Bebo back up, because I will.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Louis says, kicking him back. He glances at his phone, checking the time. “Well, if we don’t leave soon, you’re going to miss your chance to talk to your man before the assembly, and as much I loathe assemblies, I do so love watching you melt into a warm, stuttering puddle of pomade.”  
  
“Shut up,” Zayn says, but as he’s getting out of his chair he feels his heart already starting to kick up into his throat a little. It’s kind of ridiculous, really, because he’s spoken to Liam dozens of times before. The time with the flooded basement, both times Louis’ cat got stuck up a tree. They had a really nice conversation about ceiling tiles that one time someone—Zayn’s not saying who—called in an anonymous report that the sprinklers in his hallway weren’t up to code. They’re friendly acquaintances by now. Zayn has plenty of friendly acquaintances. He’s a grown man and he’s pretty damn far from a blushing virgin by now in any regard.  
  
So it’s ridiculous that by the time they reach the theatre and Zayn’s eyes hone in on Liam in a t-shirt and the bottom half of his fireman suit, his entire brain has gone fuzzy.  
  
“Go on,” Louis says, pushing Zayn in Liam’s direction. “Go say hello.”  
  
“Right,” Zayn says. He sets his shoulders. He can do this. He is sex on legs. Lesser beings fall in his path.  
  
He makes his way down the aisle while the other three slide into a row of seats near the front. Liam is in the middle of a conversation with one of the other firefighters, looking as always like the world’s most attractive boy-next-door. But in a fireman suit. Zayn wonders what he ever did to deserve this.  
  
He’s been rehearsing for days exactly what he would say. He’s recited it in front of the mirror a thousand times, practiced exactly what the look on his face should be when he says it. It’s the perfect opening line, smart and casual and just funny enough to be intriguing.  
  
As he’s on the last few steps, Liam turns and sees him and breaks into a grin, and Zayn cannot for the life of him remember what the hell he was going to say.  
  
“Hello,” he says lamely. He can’t feel his face.  
  
“Hi, Zayn!” Liam says, reaching out to shake Zayn’s hand. “How are you?”  
  
He doesn’t know. Zayn does not know how he is.  
  
“All right,” he manages.  
  
“Glad to hear it,” Liam says, and he actually sounds like it. “Ready for the assembly?”  
  
“Same every term, isn’t it?” Zayn hears himself say and immediately wishes he could take it back because why the fuck did he say _that?_ Now just he sounds like a fucking dick.  
  
Liam just laughs, though, unfazed. “Spot on. I love talking to kids, but between you and me, I’m getting a bit sick of reading these cards.”  
  
“Cool,” Zayn says. “I have to go now.”  
  
Liam looks a bit disappointed, but Zayn’s tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth and he’s already slowly backing away. “Oh, okay!” Liam says. “Good to see you!”  
  
Zayn turns and flees back up the aisle, already thinking about the bottle of vodka in his freezer at home. That was it. The thing he’s been working toward all week, and he fucking blew it, again, because he always blows it, because he can get anyone in the world to fuck him except for the one person in the world who actually matters. He should be studied by scientists, honestly. Something is wrong with him.  
  
“How’d it go?” Louis says as soon as Zayn sits down between him and Niall. Harry’s leaning forward in his seat on the other side of Louis.  
  
“Leave me alone,” Zayn says, trying not to sound as miserable as he feels.  
  
“Did you tell him you’d like to slide down his pole?” Louis says.  
  
“Shut up,” Zayn says.  
  
“Did he ask to climb your ladder?” Louis asks, poking Zayn in the side.  
  
“You’re not funny,” Zayn says.  
  
“You should ask to see his hose,” Harry chips in, and Louis looks like he’s just won the fucking lottery.  
  
“I hope you all die of dysentery,” Zayn tells them.  
  
At least, Zayn thinks, he may not be floating alone in this particular sea of despair for much longer. He can see the way Louis looks at Harry, the way his elbow is hanging over Harry’s side of the shared armrest, the way he laughs when Harry leans in and says something in his ear in the middle of the assembly. It’s too early to tell, really, but he makes a mental note, sets the date of Louis’ downfall some day in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

**Chapter 2.**

Classes have really started to pick up momentum now that everyone’s had a couple of weeks to adjust to new people and new schedules. He can hear Niall putting the brass section through their paces when he passes the orchestra room, already preparing for their autumn concert, and Zayn won’t shut up about the unit he’s doing on Wordsworth, which is almost worse than when he won’t shut up about Liam. Even Harry is starting to get serious about putting the lads through drills, although he still takes the time to eat lunch with them every day.  
  
For his part, Louis has chosen  _Much Ado About Nothing_ as his Shakespeare, reasoning that it’d probably be better to break the students in on a comedy than one of the heavier plays. He’s posted flyers already, and he’s holding auditions next month. Until then, though, he’s got classes to focus on as well. His strategy with teaching is to start the year off with movement, the fun parts that loosen everybody up and make the kids actually want to show up for class, and then gradually segue into scripts and writing assignments. He made the mistake of trying to open with fundamentals of theater theory in his first year as a teacher, and he thought he was going to off himself by the time they were trudging through _Othello_. Let no man say Louis Tomlinson does not learn from his mistakes.  
  
Today, he’s sitting on his desk again, supervising one of his classes as they try to make it through a group improv exercise. It’s actually hilarious, really. The kids are still learning, and there are a lot of awkward pauses and panicked expressions, but they really are trying.  
  
Up now is Stuart Standhill, imitating a drunk wildebeest to the best of his ability. He turns out to be brilliant at this game, which Louis was expecting. He’s worked with Stuart in his plays before. The boy has a natural gift for drama and excellent comedic timing. That’s not really what Louis is watching, though.  
  
Louis watches him bound across the floor, hands above his head, stretching himself up to the laughter of his classmates like a plant in the sun. He smiles a little to himself, but it’s almost painful to watch, because he knows. He  _knows_ , and it feels like being an immobile spectator in his own memories.  
  
He remembers two years ago, when Zayn rang him after school sounding absolutely wrung out and told him about how he had to break up a fight in the boys’ room on the second floor, how poor Stuart Standhill had had the shit beaten out of him by two of the boys in his year. He remembers how Zayn told him the kid had begged him not to report it, and Louis understands that so well. He remembers what it’s like to just want so badly to be normal, and he’d believed too at that age that turning in the people who hurt you just let everyone else know that you deserved to be hurt.  
  
He’s seen Stuart in the halls and on his stage plenty since then, seen the way he is around his friends and the way he is in his classes. He was quieter when he was younger, but in recent years he’s become a new person, all jokes and funny faces and high energy all the time. Louis knows that particular song and dance all too intimately, spent most of his teen years hiding behind that line of defense. He remembers that constant restless energy, trying so hard to be the loud one or the funny one so that nobody would notice the other way he was different. You only get one identity at that age, and you can’t be “the gay one” if you’re already “the class clown.”  
  
Stuart’s doing his best, really making a go of it. He has a girlfriend every once in a while, a close friend that he’ll suddenly be holding hands with in the halls and kissing by her locker. For the most part, though, Louis can tell that everyone sort of knows. The girls treat him like just another one of their friends, the one who knows six ways to make the uniform jumpers look less tragic and touches up their hair for the spring musical before he reports for mic check. The boys seem torn, half-fascinated by the brilliance of his personality and half-wary of something they’d never say out loud, or at least not in front of him. Louis knows Stuart must just pretend not to think about it and pretend not to know it himself, keeps hoping that one day he’ll try hard enough and it’ll work and everything will be fine.  
  
Sometimes Louis wonders how long the similarities will last, wonders if Stuart’s life is going to end up exactly like his own. He wonders if Stuart will finally stop lying to himself when he’s eighteen, if he’ll cry into his mum’s jumper when he tells her and if there’s anybody at home who’ll take care of him. He wonders if he’s already had that first awful crush on a straight friend who loves him in every way but the right one. Louis almost hopes he has, hopes he’s gotten that rib-cracking frustration out of the way early enough that it won’t follow him out of his teens. He wonders if, when the time comes, the relief of finally being out will make Stuart a little reckless for the first few years too, if he’ll end up with his heart broken enough times that he starts holding people at a safer distance. If he does, he’ll be well prepared, ready to fall back into those old habits of keeping his guard up all the time. He wonders if Stuart will be just like him by the time he’s twenty-five, a jaded cat owner whose last five shags were meaningless one-night stands that he only halfway enjoyed.  
  
And the thing is, he wants to help him so badly. He wants to sit the lad down behind closed doors and tell him that this won’t make him happy, that the parts of him that are bright and safe aren’t the only parts of him worth showing people. But he knows that if somebody had done that to him at that age—if somebody had reached in and shattered the illusion that he was fooling anybody—it probably would have destroyed whatever small sense of security he’d had. It would have sent him retreating back into himself or lashing out, horrified that somebody had seen right through him.  
  
Plus, if he’s honest, he doesn’t know how to convince someone of something that he’s not quite sure of himself.  
  
So he watches, and he does what he can. His class and his productions are safe spaces for everyone, Stuart included and especially. Or at least, they’re as safe as Louis knows how to make them. He hears a couple of lads in the back of the class talking about Stuart once and tells them they can each do an extra hundred pages of reading for the next day, since they seem to have so much free time on their hands. He knows that they’ll just keep talking outside of his classroom, but he’ll be damned if it happens within those walls. He doesn’t have any delusions of being able to fix anybody’s life, but he won’t let it get worse right in front of him.  
  
And he waits for Stuart to maybe, one day, come to him. He’s one of the youngest teachers at the school, and he’s got a reputation as being one of the more open-minded ones. Even if Zayn claims that directing sometimes turns him into “a prick of volcanic proportions,” he’s fairly well-liked, at least by the Island of Misfit Toys that constitute his drama students. He tries his best to make it clear that he’s a person his kids can talk to, and he hopes that’s enough.  
  
“And,  _scene!”_ Louis shouts, hopping down from his desk. Stuart freezes in the middle of an elaborate drunk wildebeest mating dance. Louis kind of just wants to pat him on the head. “Good work today, all of you. Not afraid to push boundaries. I like that. Maybe no more jokes about the headmaster’s Y-fronts though, Miss Harrison.” He points to a freckly girl near the front, who just shrugs in response, and Louis suppresses a grin. His kind of girl. “That’s all the time we’ve got for today. Give yourselves a hand.”  
  
The class applauds and starts gathering up their things and filing out, still laughing about the best bits of the game amongst themselves. Stuart’s one of the last ones out, arm around Shelley Harrison, and Louis gives him a small nod as he passes. Stuart blinks at him, unsure of how to respond, and then he’s off down the hall and Louis is left standing in the doorway watching himself from nine years ago head off to lunch.  
  


✖

  
  
  
It took Harry about a day to figure out that Louis has a free period after lunch, and he’s been coming around every day ever since. Sometimes he just sits quietly while Louis grades papers or works on lesson plans, but most of the time they’re talking, constantly talking, curled up to this new warmth of each other’s company.  
  
Louis learns that Harry is originally from Holmes Chapel, but he ended up alone in Manchester when one of his friends promised to let him move in but then got a work transfer at the last minute. He dropped out of uni when he was nineteen and tried his hand at a couple of different things—baking, law classes, singing in a band—but none of them ever quite worked out for him. In the end he kept coming back to photography, so he decided to make a go of it for real. He’s in his last year of school now, taking photography classes at a university nearby in the mornings. He’s got his eye on a couple of internships, one in London that he seems particularly interested in, but he talks about it like he doesn’t think he really has a chance at it. The friend he was supposed to move in with in Manchester is friends with the head P.E. instructor, and he’d felt so bad about leaving Harry without a place to stay that he’d set him up with the coaching job to help him pay the rent.  
  
It's easy to tell that Harry loves photography; he's constantly snapping pictures of things, either with his phone or on the massive camera he carries around sometimes. Louis learns quickly to dodge out of the way, ducking out of frame when Harry lifts his camera to take a picture of him for no apparent reason. When Harry asks him why he just shrugs. "Doing you a favor, Harry. I'm so beautiful I'd shatter the lens. Should be thanking me," he says with a wink, and Harry leaves it at that, for the most part. Still, Louis stays vigilant, even as he starts collecting facts about Harry.  
  
He learns that Harry loves mushrooms but hates them on pizza, that he’s completely serious about  _Love Actually_  being his favorite movie, that he’s twenty-three years old and has somehow managed to make it this far in life without developing a casual distaste for everything and everyone around him like Louis has. He still likes to bake things when he’s happy. He has a sister he loves and a mum he phones every day, and Louis is the first friend he’s made since he moved to Manchester.  
  
He has more than 20,000 songs in his iTunes, half of which are by bands Louis has never heard of. One afternoon, after Harry plays Louis five songs in a row that he claims are his “favorites” and Louis doesn’t know a single one, he seems to reach the end of his rope.  
  
“That’s it,” he says, slamming his iPod down with a forcefulness that has Louis concerned for its well-being. “When the festivals come around this year, we are going, and you are going to be educated whether you like it or not.”  
  
“I’m really not sure that’s necessary—” Louis starts, but Harry cuts him off.  
  
“Trust me. It’s necessary. We are going to Leeds Fest, I am choosing what acts we watch, and you are going to listen to songs that don’t have dubstep remixes or verses from Pitbull in them.”  
  
Louis chews on his pen. “I’m pretty sure if you look hard enough on YouTube you can find dubstep remixes for pretty much anything.”  
  
“You know what I mean,” Harry says, laughing. “Don’t try to get out of this on a technicality.”  
  
“I just don’t see anything wrong with a bit of pop, sue me,” Louis says. He also doesn’t get the appeal of listening to what sounds like several men and possibly a goat weeping into their beards, accompanied by ukelele.  
  
“Me neither!” Harry protests. “It’s just that your opinions on pop are also terrible. Katy Perry over Beyonce, Lou? Really? Are you even human?”  
  
That starts an argument that lasts the rest of Louis’ free period and continues for days. Louis eventually admits defeat, but that only makes Harry more eager to “educate” him. After that, Harry starts bringing in a flash drive full of new music for Louis almost every day. Louis just thanks him and tries not to think about what Harry could have intended when he said they would go to festivals together. That’s a thing friends do, right? And they’re friends now. So if Louis falls asleep listening to the music Harry’s given him, he’s just being a good friend. Doing his research.  
  
If he’s honest, he also finds that some of it is so boring that it provides a welcome cure for his occasional insomnia, but he’s not going to tell Harry that.  
  
There’s one thing he doesn’t learn about Harry, though, and it’s starting to drive him slightly mad. It’s not like it really matters. It shouldn’t matter. But Louis’ curiosity is killing him. He tries as hard as he can to figure it out without outright asking, dropping hints and chances for Harry to comment on things, but it never works. The fact remains: Harry Styles’ sexuality is a fucking mystery.  
  
One afternoon over lunch he manages to manipulate the conversation toward their respective sexual histories, angling it like he’s joking around. Zayn is utterly predictable, describing an equal number of men and women while looking extremely pleased with his own ability to pull, then adding dramatically that nobody has seemed to measure up ever since he met Liam. Niall throws a napkin at his face and mentions his own knack for picking up American girls at pubs, which they all already knew about, and then Harry starts speaking.  
  
“I dunno,” Harry says, shrugging as he swallows a bite of his sandwich. Louis tries very, very hard not to appear to be hanging on every word. “I haven’t really dated anybody since I turned twenty.”  
  
“But you’ve slept with people,” Zayn prompts with studied nonchalance, and Louis can tell by the way he’s carefully avoiding his eye that Zayn knows exactly what the point of this conversation is. Louis honestly forgets sometimes what a good friend Zayn is. He should buy him a fruit basket one of these days.  
  
Harry laughs a little. “Yeah, a few people. You know. Casual stuff. None of them were, like, my soulmate, you know? I mean, I liked them all, but nothing serious.”  
  
People.  _Them._  God damn Harry and his fucking aversion to gendered words. Louis is going to shove him into a pit of bears.  
  
He needs to change his approach. If he wants information out of Harry, maybe he has to give up some of his own. All right. He keeps his eyes closely trained on Harry’s face, planning to memorize and analyze any change in his expression.  
  
“Soulmates don’t exist, Harold, no matter how many times Zayn’s wanked to Liam in the shower, so it’s not surprising you haven’t found yours.” He ignores Zayn’s affronted shout and continues. “I, like you, have sought and found comfort in the realm of casual sex, and haven’t found a single gentleman worth committing to in years.”  
  
So there it is. Out there. His eyes didn’t leave Harry’s face the entire time he was speaking, and he observed, well, nothing. Not a damn thing. Not a flicker, not a blink, not a twitchy fucking eyebrow. Either Harry Styles has the poker face of a boulder or he really just does not give a shit about who other people fuck. Overall, one of Louis’ least traumatic yet most aggravating coming-outs.  
  
“That’s because you’re a cynical dick, though,” Niall says.  
  
Louis finally shifts his attention away from Harry to bat his eyelashes at Niall. “Oh, sweetie, you do know how to make a girl feel special.”  
  
“How are you supposed to know if you like them or not if you don’t actually, you know, speak to them? Or know their names?” Zayn says. “Actually, that would be an improvement at this point, when was the last time you even got laid?”  
  
“Ooh, that reminds me, Zayn, how _is_ your father doing?” Louis simpers, dodging the fork Zayn pegs at him.  
  
All four of them laugh, and conversation meanders away to topics that, if anyone asks Louis, are far less interesting than figuring out where Harry puts his dick.  
  
Normally, if a guy were as on board the Zayn and Liam’s Epic Destiny train as Harry is, Louis would assume he was at least a little bit gay. Then again, Harry is a university student—an art student, even, if photography counts—and who even knows what counts as normal straight-guy behavior for them? Plus, if he weren’t straight, why wouldn’t he have said something about it when Zayn and Louis did?  
  
Louis resigns himself to ignorance, but that doesn’t stop him from keeping a close eye on Harry over the next few days. If he had ten pence for every guy who’d played it cool when he first came out only to avoid him like the plague later, he’d have at least seventy pence, which can’t really buy much but still seems like a lot in context. Three more and he can buy a soda from the third floor vending machine. Metaphorically.  
  
But he’ll be damned if he can spot a single difference in Harry’s behavior. He keeps coming around all the time, keeps stealing food off his plate, keeps exhibiting zero sense of personal space. Louis has no idea what his angle is, but he’s going to figure it out eventually. He’s dealt with his fair share of charming men in the past, and in his experience, there are no intentions pure enough that he hasn’t been able to find the ulterior motives eventually.  
  
Until then, he guesses he’ll just enjoy Harry’s company, biding his time until he can figure him out. After all, Harry laughs at Louis’ jokes, which is more than enough to justify having him around. Plus, if Louis is being honest, he likes what Harry brings to the lunch group. It had started to devolve into Zayn and Louis bickering half-heartedly to pass the time while Niall looked on and contributed the occasional sarcastic remark, all of them knowing exactly how the other two would react to everything they did. He and Zayn are both troublemakers in their own right, and when they don’t have something to poke at they turn to each other for entertainment, trading smart remarks for lack of anything better to do. Niall would be the target, but he cares so little about what they say that there’s no fun in it. They work as a trio, Niall balancing out Zayn and Louis’ mania, but it had been getting predictable, their banter sliding into routine.  
  
Now there’s a new variable, and Louis is finding he enjoys having Harry in the mix. He never knows who Harry will side with during his mock arguments with Zayn, or if he’ll just play the two of them off each other for his own amusement, and having Harry around makes Niall more likely to speak up, too. Suddenly voices fly across the table in new patterns, laughter ringing with real surprise. Louis hadn’t realised that the three of them had been having the same conversations over and over again until Harry changed the script.  
  
Without even trying, Louis finds himself shifting into a new normal with Harry as an integral part, and he isn’t even surprised when he sees that Harry has left his iPod in Louis’ room as he packs up to leave on a Tuesday afternoon. Harry doesn’t have a classroom of his own; where would he be leaving his stuff if not Louis’ room?  
  
He grabs it as he leaves, taking the long way out to the carpark so he can swing by the pitch and return it before heading home. He’s silently pleased that this time, at least, he has a legitimate reason to stop and talk to Harry, instead of his feet just carrying him that way against his will. Until now, he’s always just walked by, maybe giving Harry a brief wave if he sees him, but there’s never been any justification to go over and say hi, and Louis has never really been one for idle small talk. Apparently he’s become one for altering his daily routine for the sake of a wave, though, which doesn’t really bear thinking about.  
  
He makes his way over and approaches the fence. It’s the closest he’s actually come to the pitch while they’re practicing, and he finds himself squinting at the players darting around the field, unsure of where to look to find Harry.  
  
“Come on, Richards, I know you’ve got more than that,” Louis hears over the noise of practice, and his eyes follow the sound until they land on Harry.  
  
He’s running drills. Not just supervising drills like Louis always assumes he does, but actually running them alongside the boys, shouting instructions and encouragement as he goes. Louis watches as he zig-zags in between the flags they’ve set up, hair falling damp in his eyes, t-shirt soaked through with sweat. The sunlight is glistening on his arms. Like, not Mills & Boon glistening. Dirty, rough-and-tumble sports glistening. Louis was not exactly prepared for this.  
  
When Harry reaches the end of the flags, he looks up and spots Louis. “Run it again!” he says, and gives a blast on his whistle. The players take off, and Harry jogs across the pitch. He slows to a stop in front of the fence and twines his fingers through the chain links.  
  
“What’s up, Lou?” he says, breathing heavily but grinning through it. Louis is almost having trouble looking directly at him this close, all muscle and energy and control. Harry looks like what bodies were invented for.  
  
It’s fucking inconsiderate, is what it is.  
  
“You left this in my room. Figured you’d need it before tomorrow,” Louis says, slipping the iPod through a gap in the fence. Harry’s face lights up when he sees it, and he grabs it happily.  
  
“Oh thank God, thought I’d lost it,” he says. “I was going to have to lead a two mile run with no music. I probably would have died, thank you so much.”  
  
Louis swallows and smiles at Harry as if there is not currently a live-action film of Harry running in slow motion to the theme from  _Chariots of Fire_ playing in his head. Because that would be crazy.  
  
“You look good,” he blurts out. “Er—the team, I mean. They seem... well-conditioned.”  
  
Harry breaks out in a grin and, wow, Louis really needs to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Thanks! We’ve been working really hard.”  
  
“Right, hard. Very hard. Um. Er, well—” Louis starts, preparing to make an excuse to escape.  
  
“You should come to the match at the end of the week,” Harry interrupts.  
  
“Oh, uh, yeah, sure, sounds great!” Louis says, because it’s his best strategy to get out of there as quickly as possible, and not at all because he has trouble saying no to dirty boys. Not that Harry is a dirty boy. Oh God. Abort. Abort. “Right. Anyway. See you tomorrow!” he says with a slightly manic wave, and then he turns tail and flees.  
  
“See you!” he hears Harry call after him, and his blush doesn’t fade until he’s halfway home.  
  


**Z**

  
  
It’s been a long day for Zayn already. He’s an hour in and he hasn’t even managed to get a full cup of coffee yet, the first one too weak and the second spilled all over the passenger seat of his car. He can’t make a bunch of teenagers care about dark romanticism versus transcendentalism without some caffeine in his system. He just can’t.

It doesn't help that his editor has been on his back all week about getting the next few chapters of his book fully drafted. He's thankful to have an editor at all, completely blown away that anyone looked at the few short stories he's had published and said  _we want you to write us a book_ , but it's still stressful to suddenly be writing on someone else's schedule. There's no way she's going to take it well when he tells her he's thinking about changing up part of his plot. His protagonist is a singer, but something about it isn't feeling right; there needs to be more people. Two singers? Can he make it about two singers? He definitely needs caffeine.  
  
He’s in the lounge on the second floor, the one with the really nice coffee maker, finally clutching a mug of strong coffee in his hands with nobody to ruin it, when Louis comes in and sidles up next to him. He looks aggressively pleasant, and Zayn is immediately suspicious. Nine times out of ten, Louis only looks aggressively pleasant when he wants something or he’s hiding something. The rare times when he is actually being aggressively pleasant are also somewhat terrifying, so no good can come of this.  
  
“Zayn, my boy. Have I ever told you that you’re my favourite?” Louis says cheerily, slapping him on the back. Yeah, Zayn is never ignoring his instincts again.  
  
He sighs dramatically. “What do you want, Tomlinson?”  
  
Louis clutches his imaginary pearls. “Surely you aren’t questioning my sincerity? Can’t a man just pay an innocent compliment to his friend, devoid of any ulterior motive?”  
  
Zayn takes a sip of his coffee and feels a little better already, enough to laugh and shove Louis away from him lightly. “A man can. You can’t.”  
  
Louis just grins, wrapping an arm around Zayn’s shoulders. “I am stunned,  _stunned_ , I say, at your accusations. Wounded, even. Luckily, I know just how you can make it up to me.”  
  
Years of experience have taught Zayn not to bother putting up a fight when Louis gets like this. Last time he tried, Louis had sulked for days and somehow Zayn had been the one who ended up apologising. He really needs to get more friends. “Fine, fine, Jesus. What do you want?”  
  
“That’s the Zayn I know and love,” Louis says. “You’re free tonight, yes?”  
  
God, Zayn would love to have something planned, something written in red on his social calendar, but a thorough search of his brain turns up nothing. Not even the biweekly English department happy hour, which he always finds an excuse to skip. Damn, damn, and thrice damn.  
  
“Yes, I’m free,” he sighs.  
  
Louis claps his hands gleefully. “Not anymore! You’re coming with me to the football match tonight.”  
  
Zayn furrows his brow at his coffee “The football match? Why’re you going—“ and then it dawns on him. “Oh.” He turns to look at Louis with amusement. This is too good.  _“Oh.”_  
  
Louis scowls. “Don’t make that face at me.”  
  
“Face?” Zayn says. “What face?” He grabs the coffee pot and goes about topping off his mug. “I’m just pleased to see that little Louis is learning to play well with others.”  
  
“Fuck off, Malik,” Louis says, but Zayn can hear the laugh behind it. “Look, he mentioned it, I said I’d go, and it’d be weird if I have to sit there alone the whole time, all right? I’m just doing him a favour. That’s all this is.”  
  
Zayn just raises his eyebrows as he stirs in a teaspoon of sugar.  
  
“I hate you,” Louis says petulantly. Zayn says nothing, just turns to look at Louis over the rim of the mug as he takes another sip.  
  
“Fine,” Louis says. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind seeing him run back and forth down the sidelines for ninety minutes, but you don’t get to be smug about it. I’m only human, and you said yourself he was fit.” He looks at Zayn expectantly. “Okay?”  
  
Zayn sets the mug down and smirks. “Fine, I’ll go. But after this we’re even, all right?”  
  
Louis snorts. “You tried to set a grease fire in my kitchen once, Malik, we are not anywhere near even.” He turns to walk out of the lounge, looking entirely too pleased with himself.  
  
“You blew that whole thing way out of proportion!” Zayn calls after him.  
  
“See you at seven!” Louis sing-songs back as the door swings shut.  
  
Zayn curses and starts another pot of coffee. Yes, definitely a long day.  
  
Stealing art supplies from his own classroom makes Zayn feel like a bit of a weirdo, but it more than pays off that night when Louis spots him in the stands with a giant "GO TEAM" sign covered in glitter. His  _face_. Half baby tasting lemon for the first time, half cat being given a bath. Beautiful.  
  
Louis makes his way up to where Zayn is sitting. “I’m going to murder you and feed your body to Duchess,” he says, snatching the sign from Zayn’s hands and shoving it under his seat before anyone sees him with it. “And she will vomit you back up, because you are not worthy of her digestive tract.”  
  
“Oh, hello Zayn, thank you so much for coming!” Zayn says in a high-pitched voice. “You’re doing me a huge favor, and I really owe you one. You’re the best friend a complete wanker like me could ever have.” He looks at Louis pointedly. “Sorry, just filling in the bits you forgot to say.”  
  
“Shut up,” Louis says. “It’s about to start.”  
  
He turns his attention to the pitch, where the players and coaches are shaking hands. Zayn spots the object of Louis’ myopia, dressed in a white shirt and black slacks. Yeah, he still gets it. The guy is very, very easy on the eyes. And he’s a decent sort of bloke, too, which is always a plus. Sure, he doesn’t have the soft brown eyes or saint-like demeanor of other, more desirable men, but when has Louis’ taste ever been as good as Zayn’s?  
  
The clock starts, and the players take off across the field. Zayn soon gets immersed in the game, to his pleasant surprise. For a bunch of teenagers, they’re not bad, and the match is hard-fought. Perhaps there’s something to be said for Harry’s coaching abilities. Before long it’s halftime, with a score of 1-1.  
  
He turns to look at Louis, who’s been uncharacteristically quiet the whole match. When they watch football together, he’s usually yelling at the screen, screaming at players and refs alike. “Not bad so far, eh?” Zayn says, nudging Louis with his elbow.  
  
Louis startles, as if waking from a dream. “Oh, um, yeah,” he says, “It’s good, the, uh, the football.” He squints at the pitch. “Where are the players?”  
  
Zayn looks at him questioningly, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come.  
  
“It’s… it’s halftime, Louis.”  
  
“Right!” Louis says cheerily. “Halftime. Yes. I knew that. One of my favorite times, halftime.”  
  
“Are you—have you been watching the game at all?” Zayn says, incredulous. Louis  _loves_  football. Well, Louis also hates football, but to be fair that’s a big part of loving football.  
  
Louis puts on a defensive face. “Of course I have! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
Zayn sits back and folds his arms. “All right, then. What happened when our side got awarded a penalty? Did we convert it or not?”  
  
Louis opens and closes his mouth, glances at the scoreboard, and says, “We made it, obviously. As if we’d miss.”  
  
Triumphant, Zayn leans forward. “There wasn’t a penalty, you tit. Did you go into a coma or something? What’s wrong with you?” he says, but Louis is already distracted, looking down toward the sideline.  
  
Zayn follows his eyeline, and suddenly everything makes sense. He can see the little blank square in his mental calendar dancing smugly before his eyes, and the song it’s dancing to is called Louis Tomlinson’s Ruination.  
  
“Oh, I see,” he says, smirking. “It’s a  _lust_  coma.” Harry’s gesturing wildly to some of the players, outlining tactics in the air, his shirtsleeves rolled up. Louis might as well be drooling. “Man, you are out of your fucking depth, aren’t you?”  
  
“Fuck off,” Louis says lightly, still looking at Harry. He’s even half-smiling, the poor bastard. “He’s hot, I’ve got eyes. There isn’t any depth for me to be in or out of.”  
  
“I’ve got eyes too, in case you’ve forgotten,” Zayn says. “And I have never seen you like this, no matter how hot the guy.” He flicks Louis on the ear and grins when he curses. “I’ve been reliably informed that I am extremely hot, and you have never once ignored football to stare longingly at me. Or any of the blokes you’ve shagged and then callously tossed aside, for that matter.”  
  
Louis rubs his ear. “I am not callous, you twat. It’s not my fault so many men are so… toss-aside-able. Anyway, you don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a purely aesthetic appreciation.”  
  
Unfortunately for Louis’ point, Harry picks this moment to glance up into the stands. He spots Louis and waves excitedly, grinning like a loon. Louis waves back, with a look on his face that’s pure sunshine under the pitch’s fluorescent lights.  
  
Normally Zayn would be thrilled to know he was right, to see Louis so thoughtlessly delighted, but for just one moment he feels terribly sad. Louis swore off getting into relationships with actual feelings before Zayn even met him, and Zayn wasn’t kidding when he said he’s never seen him like this. He hadn’t realised how rare it was for Louis to be at ease, to be happy, until he actually saw it happen. It’s amazing, and sad, and terrifying, and he wonders if Louis honestly doesn’t realise what’s going on, or if it’s just an act. Louis doesn’t like to talk much about the lads he dated before he moved to Manchester, but Zayn knows he keeps himself locked up for a reason.  
  
Zayn reaches out to ruffle Louis’ hair, knocking his glasses askew. “Whatever you say, man,” he says, and tries to put his worries away for the rest of the match.  
  
It works, and he goes back to enjoying the game without thinking about his best mate slowly descending through the stratosphere of his own disillusionment with romance and hurtling toward the hard reality of Harry Styles. Toward the 80th minute, Zayn glances over to see Louis staring at Harry like Louis is stranded on a desert island and Harry’s just turned into a giant, dancing steak, and okay, yes, this is definitely funny again.  
  
“You know, Louis,” Zayn says idly, “There’s this place called the Internet, where you can look at all the attractive men you want. For free, even. Some of them haven’t even got pants on.”  
  
“Piss off,” Louis says dreamily.  
  
They win the game, 3-2, though Zayn doubts Louis could tell you the final score with a gun to his head.  
  
“Come on, I want to say hi to Haz,” Louis says as the sparse crowd starts getting to its feet and filtering out of the stands.  
  
 _“Haz?”_  Zayn says. He turns around, effectively blocking Louis’ progress out of the row. “When did you two progress to nicknames?”  
  
“Move your arse,” Louis says, ignoring him with a shove.  
  
They file down the stands, heading toward the fence that divides the spectators from the sideline. When they reach it, Harry jogs over, clapping some of his players on the back along the way before coming to a stop in front of the fence.  
  
“Hey, I’m so glad you could make it,” he says, flushed with victory. “You too, Zayn, thank you so much for coming.”  
  
“Not a problem, mate,” Zayn says, pretending that even a tenth of the attention in this conversation is focused on him. “Your lads put on a good show.”  
  
“Yeah, they were great,” Louis says, the liar. “Brilliant.”  
  
Harry smiles at him broadly. Zayn is going to throw up. “Well, it always helps to know we’ve got friendly faces in the stands,” Harry says. “And you, um, the two of you are pretty much the only faces I’m friendly with so far, short of Niall. So seriously, thanks a lot.”  
  
“Anytime,” Louis says, and Zayn’s future spreads out before him, filled with nights spent sitting on uncomfortable plastic seats, watching Louis swoon. “Anytime” his arse. He’s going to have to develop a social life purely out of self-defense.  
  
Harry scrubs a hand through his ridiculous hair and looks apologetic. “I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go help with the post-match talk. It’s, um, kind of my job,” he says, grinning ruefully.  
  
“Yeah, no, go on,” Louis says. “Go congratulate the troops.”  
  
Walking backwards, Harry salutes them both. “See you tomorrow?” he asks, looking at Louis.  
  
“Yeah, of course,” Louis says, and Zayn can’t help but roll his eyes at the way his cheeks color. “Tomorrow.” He watches Harry turn and walk off the pitch with the last straggling players.  
  
Louis turns and looks at Zayn with sad, pathetic satisfaction in his eyes. “See? That was a perfectly platonic, friendly interaction.”  
  
Zayn gapes at him a moment, then turns on his heel and walks toward the carpark.  
  
“What?” Louis calls after him. They’re all doomed. “Zayn, you’re imagining things!”  _Doomed._

**L**

  
  
  
“Not liking things that are delicious doesn’t give you class, Lou, it just makes you a snob,” Harry says, dropping his hand down on the hole puncher as if to emphasize his point.  
  
They’re in Louis’ classroom again, papers spread out on the desks before them. Harry is always nagging Louis about letting him help with his work, which would normally be sweet, except that Harry’s interpretation of “help” often consists of him doing dramatic readings the scenes Louis’ students write for practice, complete with funny voices. While that certainly eases the pain of marking, it doesn’t actually make Louis get his work done faster. Today, since Louis is swamped with menial tasks, he’s put Harry to work punching holes in pages of the script for  _Much Ado About Nothing_  while Louis puts them into binders. That’ll teach him to try to be nice.  
  
“It’s not that I don’t like things that are delicious,” Louis says. He straightens a stack of pages and threads them through the rings. “I just don’t like things that make me violently ill in the cab on the way home.”  
  
“So-called ‘girly drinks’ are made of sunshine and booze,” Harry tells him as he punches another set of holes. “If you don’t like them, that just proves that you’ve got an allergy to happiness.”  
  
Louis rolls his eyes. “You mean to tell me that you’re the one always parading around the pub with one of those drinks in the giant glasses with the little umbrella on top?”  
  
“Yeah, in case of a tiny rainstorm,” Harry says logically. He does a little pantomime like he’s holding up a tiny umbrella over his head, and, what? God. It’s so endearing that Louis can’t even say anything mean back. Who is this person? Where did he come from? Is there some magical tropical island somewhere where Harry Styleses drop from trees like coconuts?  
  
“Fair enough,” Louis says, hiding his laughter behind Act II. “Still, there’s something to be said for good scotch.”  
  
“There’s something to be said for bingo on cruise ships, too, but since I’m not a million years old I think I’ll pass,” Harry says, wrinkling his nose.  
  
Louis makes a noise of indignation. “What’s  _that_  supposed to mean?”  
  
“It means that scotch—like all the other brown drinks—” he says, pulling a face of childish disgust, “Is for people who are old and boring and have no imagination. So neither of us should drink it.”  
  
“So I should be like you and give myself diabetes?” Louis counters.  
  
“Right, you don’t drink them because you’re so health-conscious,” Harry teases, poking him in the ribs with the hole puncher. “Sure.”  
  
“All right, fine,” Louis surrenders. “Maybe I do enjoy the occasional mojito. When I’m in the mood.”  
  
“A good choice! And they’re fun to say, too. Mo-ji-to.” Harry rolls the word around in his mouth, accentuating each syllable. Louis supposes it is a pretty enjoyable sound.  
  
“Mooo-jiiii-toooo,” he tries. Okay, it’s a fun word. Harry smiles and answers back.  
  
“Mooooooooooooo-jito.”  
  
“Mo-jiiiiiiiiiiii-to.”  
  
“Mojito-mojito-mojito.”  
  
“Mo-ji-TOOOOOOOOO—” The last one is almost a shout, one that Louis cuts off when he sees Niall standing in the doorway, looking perplexed. There’s no telling how long he’s been there.  
  
The three of them look at each other in silence for a moment. Niall furrows his brow. “Mojito?” he asks.  
  
“Mojito,” Harry answers firmly. Niall looks at Louis for confirmation.  
  
“Mojito, mojito,” he says quickly, nodding his head.  
  
Niall nods back solemnly and leaves, looking satisfied.  
  
Louis stares after him, then turns to look at Harry. He shrugs, trying to hide a smile, and goes back to punching holes in scripts. The charade lasts less than a minute though, and when Harry whispers “mojito” in the tiniest possible voice, Louis slides off his chair and laughs until he cries.  
  
It’s not the first time that Harry “helping” him ends with Louis half-laughing, half-sobbing underneath his desk, and it isn’t the last, either. As the semester progresses, most of their individual projects become shared somewhere along the line, and while Harry helps out with whatever Louis asks him to, half the time he winds up being a distraction. It goes both ways; Louis is still powerless to say no to almost anything when Harry’s doing the asking, and going to football matches is hardly the end of it.  
  
Harry watches some ridiculous American movie and comes up with the idea of putting on a carwash to raise some money to buy the team some new uniforms, and the next thing Louis knows, he’s standing in the carpark in October with his trousers rolled up to his knees and a small arsenal of sponges. Louis doesn’t even like washing his own dishes. Things may be getting slightly out of hand.  
  
Then again, Niall and Zayn volunteered as well when Harry mentioned that he’d need a couple more hands to keep things running, so really, Louis is just doing this out of the goodness of his heart. To help his friend. And, you know, school spirit and all that. Plus, the sun gives him an excuse to wear his new aviators, and that’s honestly just a public service.  
  
So it’s been a Saturday afternoon of filling up buckets and passing bottles of soap along and generally overseeing, because as much as Louis may want to do things for Harry, he does not deign to wash other people’s cars. Besides, the boys from the team have mostly got that covered. There’s a lot of shirtlessness and scrubbing and throwing sponges at each other despite the chill in the air. Louis privately thinks the whole thing is a bit homoerotic, honestly, but then again he’s never fully understood the thought processes of the heterosexual male, much less the sporty teenage ones.  
  
Harry and Zayn have been flitting between cars making sure the drivers know where to go and occasionally grabbing a rag to help, and Niall has set up some speakers a little way down the carpark, bumping a mixture of top forty pop and Jay-Z while they work. One of the players must have tipped off a friend or something, because about an hour after Zayn showed up, a small crowd of female students started congregating at the edge of the carpark and have been watching the proceedings like giggly, hormonal hawks.  
  
The flow of cars is steady, and by mid-afternoon they’ve raised a decent amount of money, more than half of their goal. Harry has also kept his shirt on the entire day, which Louis thinks he should probably count as another victory. Whoever the patron saint is of avoiding public arousal, Louis owes them one. He’s beginning to think that they may make it through this whole thing without incident.  
  
That bubble is summarily burst as Harry comes over to where Louis is loitering by the hose and refreshments. Pouring water into buckets is thirsty work, all right. “Hey, Louis,” Harry says, looking at something in the distance over Zayn’s shoulder. “What does that fireman of Zayn’s drive?”  
  
“Something really boring and sensible, I think,” Louis tells him. He’s so busy refilling a bucket of suds that the implication of the question doesn’t actually hit him for a few moments, but then— “Oh God, _no.”_  
  
Louis follows the line of Harry’s eyes to the dark gray SUV that’s idling a couple of spots back in the line and then zeroes in on the driver and, yes, of course, there’s a handsome, good natured face smiling pleasantly at the world around him. Obviously he could never pass up an opportunity to be philanthropic. Leave it to Zayn to become obsessed with the actual most wholesome human being in this hemisphere.  
  
“Zayn is going to have a fucking meltdown,” Louis says. “He hasn’t even got on his tight trousers.”  
  
“We’ve got to do something,” Harry says, his eyes going huge. “Can you text him or something? Just, you know, heads up, love of your life is here, probably stop making that face when you’re washing tires?”  
  
“Can’t, he gave me his mobile so it wouldn’t get wet,” Louis says, fishing it out of his back pocket to show Harry.  
  
“Shit,” Harry says, but then his face splits into a look that Louis can only describe as trouble.  
  
“Oh, no,” he says.  
  
“I’ve got an idea,” Harry says, whipping out his own phone. “Run get Niall and a hose. Have him bring the sound system over here.”  
  
Louis knows he should be asking questions, but Harry’s enthusiasm has him springing into action without a second thought. Niall seems skeptical when Louis approaches him, but as soon as he hears that it’s in the service of Zayn’s destiny and also taking the piss out of him, he’s wheeling the cart with the stereo system on it over eagerly. The dark grey SUV has crept forward a spot in line, but Louis thinks they’ll still have time for whatever Harry’s got planned.  
  
“Brilliant, Niall, you’re the best,” Harry says when he sees them approaching. “Can we hook my phone up to these speakers?”  
  
Niall shrugs. “Yeah, of course.” He takes the proffered phone and starts plugging in cables.  
  
Louis turns to Harry. “Want to let us in on what hijinks we’re up to, exactly?”  
  
Harry grins evilly. “We’re throwing Zayn a wet t-shirt contest for one,” he says, looking over at the line of cars. “Shit, it’s almost showtime. Louis, fold the hose in half and turn the water on. Niall, is the phone ready to go?” Louis sees Niall give a double thumb-up and moves to follow Harry’s instructions.  
  
Harry picks up his phone, his finger poised over a button. “Louis, on my say-so, release the water and soak Zayn.”  
  
“Aye-aye, captain,” Louis says, grinning. He has privately thought that Zayn needed to be hosed down on more than one Liam-related occasion, but this is even better. Harry is possibly a genius.  
  
All three of them have their eyes trained on Zayn as he finishes up the car in front of the SUV, blissfully unaware of their plans for him. He walks to the driver’s side window and says something that makes the woman inside laugh, then points to the station ahead where she can give her donation to one of Harry’s lads from the team. The car accelerates, pulls away, and...  
  
“Now,” Harry says.  
  
Louis releases the kink in the hose and points it straight at Zayn’s back. The jet of water strikes him square between the shoulder blades, soaking his white t-shirt through and through immediately. On some terrible instinct Zayn turns around, trying to shield himself with his arms, but all that does is drench his chest as well. When he’s looking good and soggy, Louis lowers the hose, satisfied with his handiwork. Zayn just stares at them, murder in his eyes and water in his quiff.  
  
“Sorry, Zayn!” Louis says cheerfully. “Completely lost control of the hose there!”  
  
“Yeah, Louis, I noticed,” Zayn shouts back, and Louis knows the fact that they’re surrounded by students is the only thing keeping Zayn from adding “you fucking arsehole” to that.  
  
He turns his back on them, reaching to pull off his soaked shirt, and Harry hits play.  
  
For a moment, for one glorious moment, Louis thinks there must actually be something to this whole destiny thing Zayn believes in so adamantly, because in that moment, everything aligns. The first chords of “Rock You Like a Hurricane” rip through the carpark in perfect time with Zayn’s footsteps as he walks toward Liam’s car, peeling his sticking shirt off over his head, and just then a cloud moves and the late afternoon sun hits him from behind, and okay, wow. Zayn shakes his hair out just as the guitar really kicks in, and if Louis didn’t know better, he’d swear that Zayn is moving in slow motion. It is actually the most ridiculous thing Louis has ever seen, but it’s also kind of the best thing that has ever happened.  
  
Then Zayn looks up.  
  
“Fuck,” Louis says under his breath, glancing back. Harry’s got one fist pressed to his mouth in anticipation, eyes darting from Louis to Zayn to Liam and back again. Niall is next to him, whispering, “Yes, yes,” to himself, his eyes wide.  
  
For half of a second, Zayn seems frozen in place. He stares at Liam. Liam stares back, and then gives a tiny little wave.  
  
This, it seems, is enough to snap Zayn out of his stupor. A change comes over him, rippling through his body from head to toe. He slings his shirt over one shoulder, rolls his hips just a little to the side. As he covers the last stretch of pavement between himself and Liam, he is positively feline.  
  
 _The bitch is hungry,_  scream the Scorpions, and Louis could not agree more.  
  
Zayn downright saunters up to the window of Liam’s SUV, leaning languidly against the side as he greets him. Liam, for his part, is wide-eyed but appears to be trying to carry on a normal conversation, bless him. The music blasts on and, oh, this is  _good._  
  
Not taking his eyes off of the scene unfolding in front of them, Harry clasps Niall’s hand, shaking it firmly, and then does the same to Louis. “Gentlemen, we have a lot to be proud of today.”  
  
Louis can see Zayn flexing his pecs from here. A victory of this caliber deserves refreshments. He reaches down into the ice chest, snagging a can of soda and cracking it open.  
  
“You two are officially on the crew for the spring musical, because that is the highest production quality this school has ever seen,” he says. He lifts his drink toward them briefly in a mock toast before taking a swig.  
  
“I don’t think that bloke is prepared for how clean his car is about to get,” Niall says sagely.  
  
“Oh, I’m sure Zayn will take care of all his crevices,” Harry throws back, and Louis chokes on his drink.  
  
Liam says something and Zayn makes a show of laughing at whatever it is, rubbing his hand over his stomach like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. When he pulls his hand away, there’s a smear of grease spanning half of his waist, too perfect to be accidental. He looks down and laughs again, and then bends down to the bucket, picks his rag back up, and deliberately wrings it out over his skin before beginning to slowly, thoroughly,  _actually_  rub himself down.  
  
“Jesus  _Christ,”_  Niall says, both hands clutched to his face. Harry buries his face in Louis’ shoulder.  
  
“Observe, the Zayn in its natural habitat,” Louis says, slipping into his announcer voice. “A Zayn in the mating season is truly a magnificent thing to behold. See how he carefully greases and prepares his body for his mate. So majestic.”  
  
“I can’t handle this,” Niall says. “I. I wasn’t prepared.” He takes his phone out and starts snapping pictures.  
  
“This is the best thing I have ever done,” Harry says, fingers digging into Louis’ side. “Do you think it’s working?”  
  
“It’s hard to say,” Louis says. “This particular species of Tragic Fireman is often immune to the Zayn’s potent pheromone.”  
  
“Nature is amazing,” Harry says.  
  
From what Louis can tell, Harry seems to have an entire playlist of ‘80s rock already on his iPhone. Louis wonders exactly what kind of life Harry has led up to now that would necessitate such a thing, but really, knowing Harry, it’s not that surprising. He probably spent a summer abroad as part of a hair-metal nudist circus or something. “Rock You Like a Hurricane” fades into “Here I Go Again” and Louis half expects Zayn to climb up on the hood of Liam’s car and writhe around for a while. He’s thankful that he doesn’t, though, because the girls on the side seem to be convulsing already, and he doesn’t fancy having to turn the hose on any of them. He and Zayn get away with a lot, but that would still probably get him fired.  
  
Zayn just carries on, washing Liam’s car like he’s in a damn calendar shoot. Louis wonders if Harry’s managed to accidentally stumble upon the cure to Zayn’s hopelessness with Liam. It sort of makes sense, when he really considers it. Two of the main driving forces behind all of Zayn’s actions are his vanity and his inflated sense of romance, and creating a gratuitous public spectacle combines both of those into a Zayn Malik sex crème brûlée. Louis wonders why he never thought of it before.  
  
“D’you think it’s really necessary for him to stick his arse out like that while he washes tires?” Niall says, head tilted slightly to the side like he’s watching an interesting program on the telly.  
  
“Technique is the key to a good rim job,” Louis says, and Niall doubles over in laughter. Harry looks like the cross between a proud parent and a scandalized nun, which, when Louis thinks about it, is exactly what he was going for.  
  
They’re both distracted, though, by Zayn standing up, dipping the sponge back into the bucket of suds, and wringing it out over his face and neck. He shakes his head like a wet dog, scattering droplets everywhere before running his hands through his hair to get his fringe off his face. The suds run down his torso slowly, leaving behind shining trails that criss-cross his tattoos. Def Leppard wails on somewhere in the background. Pour some sugar, indeed.  
  
“Not subtle,” Harry swallows. “But not ineffective either,” and Louis is too stunned to even try to interpret that.  
  
“Christ, I think  _I_  felt something there,” Niall says. “Well played.”  
  
“Well, let’s hope that one did the trick,” Louis says, “because it looks like Zayn’s time is up.” Every inch of Liam’s car is sparkling, and the line behind it is going to get out of hand if things don’t keep moving. Harry’s been waving the boys toward other cars to keep them away from Zayn’s blast radius, but even so there are too many people waiting for Zayn to keep this up.  
  
Harry heaves a sigh and picks up his phone. “It was fun while it lasted,” he says, and cuts the music.  
  
Zayn, who had been talking to Liam again while leaning up against his car in a ridiculously arched position, looks like a puppet with his strings cut, his posture suddenly slouching back to normal. He looks over at Louis, who jerks his head at the line of cars forming. Zayn pouts but turns back to Liam, pointing out the donation area up ahead. Liam nods frantically and pulls away. Instead of going to the next car in line, though, Zayn jogs over toward the three of them.  
  
“Tell me, Jessica Simpson, are your boots made for walking?” Louis says as he approaches.  
  
“Fuck _off,_ where’s the hose?” Zayn says, shivering and looking around desperately. “I have so much soap in my eyes, Jesus Christ.”  
  
Louis holds out the hose, but then pulls it back before Zayn can grab it.  
  
“So you’re saying you risked blindness to throw yourself at this guy,” Louis says. Harry and Niall are both laughing so hard they look like they’re about to wet themselves.  
  
“Fuck you, Louis, this fucking  _burns.”_  He snatches the hose from Louis’ hands and starts washing the soap off his face. “Go distract him, I can’t let him see me like this,” he says, cupping handfuls of water and bringing them up to his eyes.  
  
“Are you seri—” Louis starts, but Harry interrupts.  
  
“You can gather intel, Lou, go on,” and well, the man does have a point. Thankfully, there’s a line at the donation area too, so Louis has time to saunter over before Liam’s left. Louis walks up to the driver’s side window and leans over, doing his best to look normal-friendly and not your-discomfort-delights-me-friendly.  
  
“Hello, there,” he says, offering his most winning smile.  
  
“Hi,” Liam says. His face, Louis notices, is a very interesting shade of red, but beyond that, he still seems to be behaving as if this is an ordinary thing to happen to a man who just wanted to get a wash and wax for a good cause. “I, um, I think this is where I’m supposed to give a donation?”  
  
“Yes, right this way,” Louis says, gesturing elaborately to the group of teenagers just ahead. “We appreciate your contribution.”  
  
“Great, thank you,” Liam says. “I’m happy to help.”  
  
Poor sod. Poor, oblivious sod.  
  
He pulls up, and Louis watches as he pulls out his wallet, counts out a couple of notes, pauses, and then empties the entire thing into the bucket.

 

 

 

 

**Chapter 3.**

"Rod Stewart," Harry says. Louis stares blankly at the contents of his refrigerator, phone wedged against his ear. Just moments ago he was standing here wondering how long ago he bought that feta cheese, and then Harry called and effectively commandeered all of his attention.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Rod Stewart,” Harry says again. “I was right. It was totally Rod Stewart, not Barry Manilow."  
  
Louis leans against the door of the fridge, trying to pin down the sudden smile inching up his face. "Christ, that was like two weeks ago, Harold."  
  
"Yeah, but I just remembered to google it," Harry tells him. Louis can almost see his shrug, the smug set of his mouth, and he’s thankful Harry can’t see the way his own smile keeps spreading.  
  
"Well, I hope you're pleased with yourself," Louis says. He snags a jar of cherries off of the shelf and closes the door with his hip, twisting the lid off as he pads over to the kitchen counter.  
  
"I am,” Harry says, and then he drops his voice and rasps down the line,  _“If you want my booody, and you think I'm seeexy, come on sugar let me knooow."_  
  
Louis squeezes his eyes shut for a moment but doesn’t miss a beat. "Did you only call to serenade me with the smooth, sultry sounds of Not Barry Manilow?"  
  
"Pretty much, yeah,” Harry says. “And there are a lot of songs by Not Barry Manilow, so you should settle in. It’s going to be a long show."  
  
Louis sets the jar down on the counter and leans against it. “Is that so?” Duchess leaps up to the counter, and Louis pets her absentmindedly.  
  
“Mhmm,” Harry hums.  
  
Louis can’t help himself. “So you’re going to keep me up all night, then?” he purrs. He hears a sharp intake of breath down the line that could be the start of a laugh, but before he gets to find out, Duchess swipes out a paw and bats the jar of cherries off the counter.  
  
It hits the floor with a crash and shatters into a puddle of glass, cherries, and syrup that starts spreading alarmingly fast. “Shit, shit,  _shit,_ ” Louis says, jumping across the kitchen to grab a dishtowel off the side of the sink. Duchess just watches him, her tail swishing angrily.  
  
“Lou?” Harry’s tinny voice reminds him he still has his phone between his ear and shoulder. “You all right? What happened?”  
  
God, should he try to soak up the syrup or sweep up the glass first? “Jesus! Haz, I’ve got to let you go, my cat’s just broken a jar all over the floor, there’s shit everywhere.”  
  
“Have you got shoes on?”  
  
“No.” Does he need a mop for this? Does he even own a mop?  
  
“Are you at least wearing socks?” Harry’s voice cuts into his thoughts again.  
  
Louis makes a face, half at the sticky morass on his floor and half at the question. “When have you ever known me to wear socks?”  
  
Harry sighs on the other end of the line. “See, this is why you should wear socks!”  
  
“Really?  _This_  is why?” He pauses with his head in the cabinet under his sink, looking for a sponge. “Does this sort of thing happen to you often?”  
  
“Just be careful,” Harry says, laughing a little.  
  
He pulls a sponge and some rubber gloves out from under the sink. “Hazza, if I manage to be seriously injured by a broken jar tonight, I will deserve what I get.” He slides on the rubber gloves and starts picking up the biggest pieces of glass, dropping them in the rubbish bin. “But I might actually cut myself if I get distracted, so I’m going to go now.”  
  
“G’bye,” Harry says cheerfully, and Louis takes the phone from his shoulder and hangs up.  
  
As he finishes with the glass and starts sopping up the syrup, he glances up to the counter to see Duchess watching him, her ears lying back and her tail still thrashing.  
  
"What?” he says, narrowing his eyes. “What's that look supposed to mean?"  
  
Duchess just lifts her chin haughtily and squints at him.  
  
"Oh, don’t you start,” Louis says. “Look, just because I like him as a person, and just because he's extremely fit, and just because he makes me laugh and also sometimes makes me want to drown myself in a ditch, does not mean I  _fancy_  him.”  
  
She tilts her head slightly to one side, a mixture of condescension and pity that Louis frankly finds insulting coming from someone who shits in a box.  
  
Louis points accusingly at her with one rubber gloved hand. “Stop  _looking_  at me like that!”  
  
Duchess lifts a paw and grooms it daintily. _I have resigned myself to the fact that my owner is a pathetic idiot,_ her face seems to say.  
  
“What do you know, hmm?” Louis says, glaring. “What do you know about human emotions? You’re a fucking cat, you don’t even have feelings.”  
  
She lowers her paw slowly, looking wounded, and Louis feels guilty immediately.  
  
“Okay, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry,” Louis says, hopping over the mess and reaching out a hand to pet her. She recoils from his hand with a glare. “I’m sorry! Don’t give me the eyes, oh God. Here.” He plucks up a cat toy from nearby and shakes it in front of her impassive face. “You want the little jingly feather ball on a stick? Look, it’s your favorite!”  
  
Duchess just keeps staring at him as if he is something she threw up on the carpet.  
  
“Oh for God’s sake, don’t pout,” Louis says, dropping the toy. “Okay, _fine._  Maybe I fancy him. Just a little.”  
  
The look on her smushed cat face remains deeply unimpressed, and Louis moans in exasperation. His cat is an arsehole, but she’s not wrong.  
  
The thing is, he knows how he feels about Harry. He’s known for weeks, really, maybe even longer. He’s not an idiot, as much as his cat seems to think otherwise. He knows that giddy, restless feeling in his fingers and that electric warmth in his chest and what it means when his head fills up with noise every time Harry says his name. But it’s one thing to know something about yourself and another thing to really accept it and deal with the consequences, and Louis doesn’t have any interest in the latter at all. He’s twenty-five years old, and he told himself long ago he can’t afford to have feelings like this anymore. It always ends the same.  
  
As long as he doesn’t deal with it, doesn’t put a name on it or make it real, it doesn’t matter. It can just stay in the places between his bones, this unspoken thing that doesn’t change anything or make him forget the reasons he shored up all these defenses in the first place. And if sometimes when he thinks about Harry he catches himself smiling for no reason, that’s nobody’s damn business but his own.  
  
But Duchess is still looking at him like that and, God, he’s never forgiving himself for the one time he let his mum keep her while he was out of town, because he’s sure Duchess picked this up this from her.  
  
“Okay, I fancy him a lot!” he half-shouts. “I have a big dumb crush on Harry. Are you happy now? Is this what you want from me?”  
  
He slumps over the counter, head in his rubber gloves and feet sticking to the floor and guilted into emotional honesty by his cat. Duchess makes a satisfied sound and leaps down onto the floor, leaving a trail of sticky pink paw prints out of the kitchen.

✖

  
  
They all ribbed Zayn for days after the car wash, teasing him about his performance and Liam’s sizable donation and suggesting he pursue a career as an exotic dancer since he seems to have such a high profit margin. In the weeks since, though, Liam hasn’t so much as popped by for a visit, and they’ve given up, chalking the contribution up to Liam’s ridiculously good nature. Zayn has once again returned to looking consumptive and tragic all the time. Business as usual, really.  
  
As is traditional when Zayn sinks into a particularly deep funk, Louis takes it upon himself to stage Sad Movie Night. Maybe it's something about Zayn's penchant for high drama and tragic romance, but it seems that lying on the couch with a bottle of wine and crying his eyes out over a couple of star-crossed morons always makes him feel better immediately. Whatever. Louis hates watching this kind of shit on a normal day, but he'll take one for the team. Besides, if it gets Zayn to stop haunting the halls like he's in a damn Bronte novel and tweeting things like  _loving you is painful x all i want is you :(_  it'll be worth it.  
  
Harry’s been missing in action for a few days, too busy working on a big project for school to come around in the afternoons, but he’s up for it as soon as Louis texts him about it. He claims that  _Titanic_  is his second favorite movie and offers to bring his own DVD, which, really, Louis should have seen that one coming. As usual, Niall only agrees to sit through it when promised that free beer and nachos will be provided for him, and the four of them set a time on a Friday night to meet at Zayn’s flat.  
  
Louis is halfway down Zayn’s hall when he hears footsteps coming up fast behind him, and he has just enough time to think  _oh shit I am about to be mugged_  before he drops his bag and turns around and finds himself with his arms full of Harry Styles.  
  
The collision knocks him back a few steps and his arms come up around Harry’s waist on reflex, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. Oh, God. Perhaps a mugging would have been kinder.  
  
“Hi!” Harry says. Louis is pretty sure some of Harry’s hair is in his mouth. He is focusing on this because if he thinks too hard about the feeling of Harry’s arms around him and Harry’s body pressed up against his he might not make it out of this hallway.  
  
“Hello,” he manages.  
  
Harry lets him go, moving back a step or two as Louis regains his balance. “Sorry,” he says, grinning. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”  
  
Louis ignores the flush threatening to spread across his face. “How’d your project go?”  
  
“Brilliant!” Harry says. “Got my critiques today, my professor loved it.”  
  
“A man of taste, then,” Louis says, and the way Harry smiles at that makes Louis stupidly proud of himself. They fall into step with each other, Harry with a couple of shopping bags hanging off his arms and Louis shouldering his own bag. It’s nice just to have Harry next to him again chattering on about his project, and all the positive energy radiating off of him has Louis starting to feel a bit giddy himself.  
  
When Zayn opens the door, he’s wearing his oldest hoodie over his slouchiest tank top, looking like the droopiest, most pitiful version of himself.  
  
“Awww,” Louis says, “look at my favorite sad laundry pile.”  
  
“Did you bring the wine?” Zayn says in lieu of greeting.  
  
Louis leads the way inside, Harry following close behind. “Yes. Three bottles. Tell me you love me.”  
  
“I hate you less than I hate everything else right now,” Zayn says. He takes one of the bottles and makes his way into the kitchen where Niall is already at the counter, sprinkling a mountain of cheese over his nachos.  
  
“Thank God you’re here,” Niall says. “Another five minutes alone with this one and I may have killed myself.”  
  
“I’m in an  _emotional state_ ,” Zayn says hotly. Louis reaches over and gently takes the corkscrew out of his hand, deciding that Zayn should perhaps not be allowed to touch any potential murder weapons tonight.  
  
“I brought the movie, and also popcorn,” Harry says as he starts dumping his bags out on the counter. “And chocolates, which we can mix in the popcorn.”  
  
“I love you,” Niall says, abandoning his cheese momentarily to snatch up a bag of chocolates. Harry beams at him.  
  
“How come you never talk to me like that?” Louis says, pouting at Zayn.  
  
“Because you’re a twat,” Zayn says. Louis winks at him as he takes the bottle back and starts uncorking it himself, and Zayn turns to glower across the kitchen at Harry. “You’re in an offensively good mood.”  
  
“Sorry,” Harry says, still smiling. “Just one of those days where you feel like you can do anything, you know?”  
  
“No,” Zayn says.  
  
Louis gets the bottle open while Harry and Niall fight over who gets to use the microwave first, and Zayn snatches it out of his hands, foregoing the glasses on the counter to drink directly from the bottle. He slumps over to the sofa with it, and Louis sighs. Rule number one of Sad Movie Night: make sure to bring Zayn his own bottle.  
  
He pops into the bathroom for a minute and returns to discover that everyone’s shifted to the living room and the DVD menu is open on the television, playing a loop of “My Heart Will Go On.” Louis loves Celine Dion as much as the next theatre-worshipping gay man, but the sound is already making him grit his teeth. The things he does for his friends, Jesus.  
  
Niall’s already staked out the only armchair and made himself at home with a beer between his knees and a plate of nachos balanced on one of the armrests, and Louis wonders how greasy his phone will be by the end of the night after playing Bejeweled with nacho-fingers all the way through the movie. On one end of the sofa, Zayn has curled up into the fetal position around his personal merlot, and on the other, Harry’s sprawled out with his feet up on the coffee table. The only seat left is a narrow strip of space between Harry and Zayn, and Louis feels his stomach go funny when he realises he’s going to spend the next three hours in the dark crammed up against Harry.  
  
“Saved your spot,” Harry says, patting the empty half a cushion next to him.  
  
Louis steps over Harry’s legs, eyeing the so-called spot skeptically. “You two are seriously underestimating the amount of bum space I require.”  
  
“No one’s underestimating your bum,” Harry says. He slings one leg over Louis as soon as Louis sits down next to him, and, wow, Louis’ life would probably be a lot easier without the knowledge of what it feels like to have the muscles of Harry’s thigh stretched across his lap.  
  
Louis swallows, keeping his eyes on the television, and prods Zayn’s arse with the remote control. “Ready?”  
  
Zayn makes an incoherent sort of moaning noise in response, which Louis will take as a yes. The opening chords of the movie’s score fill the room, mingled with the sounds of Niall crunching noisily from his chair.  
  
Louis liked  _Titanic_  well enough the first time he saw it, but a passel of younger sisters and three years as Zayn Malik’s best friend has beaten any lingering affection into the ground. At this point, the next three hours are going to be more of an endurance test than anything else. Normally he could entertain himself by making scathing commentary throughout, but if he tries that now Zayn will have his head, or at least be incredibly whiny about it. He does his best to focus on barely-legal Leonardo DiCaprio. At least that never gets old.  
  
Harry must have seen this movie even more times than Louis has, but he wasn’t kidding when he said it was one of his favorites. Bored, Louis finds himself watching Harry as much as the movie, marveling at the way Harry mouths along with half the lines. When they get to the sex scene, Harry stage-whispers, “Put your hands on me, Jack!” along with Kate Winslet, lurching sideways and throwing his arms around Louis’ neck like he’s having a swooning fit. Louis has to grab onto his thigh to keep them from falling over, and Harry breaks off giggling and falls back into his side of the couch, but one of his arms stays around Louis’ shoulders.  
  
Louis looks down at his lap, at Harry’s leg thrown over it, at his own hand resting on Harry’s thigh. They’ve always been a bit physical with each other, but it’s usually just pokes and slaps and elbows, never anything quite like this. It must just be Harry’s good mood, Louis thinks, because that’s the only option that doesn’t make his nervous system go into crisis. Louis wants to lean back into his touch, wants to knock him backwards and climb on top of him, wants to jump up and run away as fast as he can, but he can’t do any of that. He doesn’t know what Harry wants from him, and even if he did, he can’t even decide which option would be the most terrifying.  
  
Instead, he settles for leaving his hand where it is and shifting his eyes back to the movie, and he feels Harry’s fingers twitch a little on his shoulder. They sit there like that, watching Jack and Rose have sex, Harry’s arm around him and Louis’ hand on his thigh, and Louis tries very, very hard not to dig his fingers in when Rose’s hand slides down the glass.  
  
When the damned boat finally starts sinking, Louis distracts himself from Harry by assigning diving scores to the people jumping into the ocean, giving a silent 10 to the one who hits the propellor. His sadistic enjoyment, however, is interrupted by Kate Winslet being a self-sacrificing fool, and he can keep quiet no longer.  
  
"Ugh, come on!” Louis shouts at the screen. “He’s pretty, babe, but he’s not that pretty.”  
  
"Are you kidding?” Harry says, turning to gape at him. “That's, like, practically the best part of the movie!"  
  
Louis gestures at the couple embracing onscreen. "’You jump, I jump?’ That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. She had a chance to live!"  
  
"She did live!" Harry argues.  
  
"Yeah, barely,” Louis sneers. “She was nice and safe and warm on a lifeboat, and then she jumped back on the sinking ship and wound up almost freezing to death on a door. She's an idiot."  
  
"It was for love!" Harry says, hands flapping so hard through the air that he almost upsets his popcorn.  
  
"Fat lot of good love did her,” Louis says. “He died anyway, didn't he?"  
  
"That's not the point, though,” Harry says. “All they had was each other. She couldn’t just leave him. It didn't matter if they lived or died as long as they were together."  
  
Louis rolls his eyes. “That’s rubbish. You always save yourself.”  
  
“Would you two shut up?” Zayn snaps from his corner of the couch where he’s still cuddling his bottle of wine. “I can’t hear.”  
  
Louis chucks a pillow at him but settles back into the cushions, returning his attention to Leo DiCaprio.  
  
It’s obviously not an argument that he and Harry are ever going to agree on, anyway. Harry is the posterboy for flowerchild optimism, and Louis is Louis, and, well. It’s stupid, but there’s this low, restless, creeping feeling in his gut, and it feels almost like jealousy. He tries to put it to the back of his mind, but it keeps coming back up, bitter on the back of his tongue. He keeps hearing it in his head,  _as long as they were together_ , and it’s like a splinter under his skin that he can’t quite pull out. How can Harry think that? Louis can’t imagine a life that would allow him to be someone ruled by anything other than survival instinct.  
  
It must be nice, Louis thinks, to have the luxury of thinking like that. To be able to afford the risk of letting himself believe in the possibility of a world where things really do work like that and everything turns out for the best. To have days where you feel like you can do anything instead of an endless string of days where you feel like you’ve never done anything worth that kind of happiness.  
  
Harry doesn’t get it. He wears his heart on his sleeve because he hasn’t any idea what the world is really like. Things don’t always happen for a reason. Sometimes life is mean and pointless and people hurt you just because they can. Sometimes you fall in love with a person or a fantasy of the person you’re going to be someday, and all it ever does for you is make you into something you hate, brittle bones and stone walls.  
  
He's pulled out of his thoughts by the motion out of the corner of his eye of Harry lifting up his phone. Louis gets a hand in front of his face just before he hears the fake shutter sound of the camera going off. "Missed me," he says, peeking out from behind his fingers.  
  
"I don't get why you won't let me take your picture," Harry says, pouting a bit, and Louis just laughs.  
  
"Well, we can't have you finding out I'm a vampire, can we?" he says, patting Harry's thigh consolingly. He turns back to the film, and tries not to worry about what Harry might see in his eyes if he ever managed to catch him off-guard.

✖

  
  
When Louis first moved to Manchester, autumn was the hardest time of year. Back home in Doncaster when he was younger, he used to spend every autumn outside, racing Stan through backyards with pensioners shouting at them from their windows and wrestling with his sisters in piles of leaves. He remembers the smell of firewood and cinnamon, getting used to the itchy wool of the jumpers his mum bought him for the first cold snap, the tree on the corner of the street he used to live on and how it turned the brightest, deepest red. Summers were fun, but autumn was home.  
  
Even now, a few years in, sometimes it’s hard to shake the homesickness when the temperature drops and the leaves start to change, but Manchester is home now too. Manchester is Zayn ringing him from the nail salon to ask about a movie title he can’t remember and Niall tripping him in the hallway and a bunch of teenagers who look at him like he’s got the answers. Manchester is a flat that smells like him and Duchess curled up in the gap between the dryer and the wall. Manchester is boy with curly hair and a camera slung around his neck.  
  
So October rolls into November and November keeps moving.  _Much Ado_  rehearsals have taken off in earnest now, three nights a week and sometimes once on the weekend. His students seem to be taking to the material well, and he’s pleased that nobody seems to be completely clueless about Shakespeare. He’s never gotten along with the art teacher since that incident with the kiln two years back, so he always enlists Zayn to help him with painting the set, and Niall is on call for when he starts working with lights and microphones. Harry comes by regularly as well, as always eager to help out however he can. Louis watches with pride as they all plow on together, and he’s got high hopes for when they open right before Christmas holidays.  
  
Most people at the school aren’t thinking so far in advance, though. Right now most of the students and faculty are focused on the end of the month. There’s a school fair coming up the first weekend of November, put together by the student council in conjunction with two other nearby schools to raise money. It's the first time they've ever done anything like it, and the whole school is buzzing. The fair's going to take over the car park for half a week, setting up rides and games and booths, and it’s all anyone in any of Louis’ classes is talking about. It’s the kind of thing Louis can easily imagine himself loving in his teens and also the kind of thing that he’s sure he has long outgrown the ability to enjoy.  
  
“Are you going?” Harry says one day, sitting on a desk in Louis’ classroom and thumbing through a folder of his own prints.  
  
Louis looks at him, trying not to be distracted by the way his fingers move. “Wasn’t really planning on it.”  
  
Harry pulls a face. “Come on, it’ll be fun!” he says. “I’m going.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Louis says, wondering how he feels outnumbered when it’s only Harry. “I’ve got a lot of marking to do this weekend.”  
  
“You’ve always got a lot of marking to do,” Harry argues. “You can blow it off for one night. Please? I want you to come.” He looks so serious about it, so earnest, and Louis can’t say no. Not when Harry wants him there so much.  
  
“All right,  _fine_ ,” Louis relents, “I’ll go.”  
  
Harry pumps his fist in victory, and two days later, Louis is standing in front of the ticket booth wondering how on earth he let himself get dragged into this.  
  
He gives the student council member staffing the entrance the requisite five pounds, and pockets the tape of tickets she hands him. He walks slowly into the fair, slightly overwhelmed by the sheer variety of sounds and sights around him. He may be here under duress, but he has to admit that the school’s done an impressive job. There are game booths as far as the eye can see, smells of dozens of fried foods wafting through the air, and even a few rides. The Ferris wheel looks a bit rickety in the late afternoon sun, though, so Louis files it firmly under Do Not Partake.  
  
He pulls out his phone and shoots Harry a text.  
  
 _i’m here. where r u?_  
  
He pockets the phone and starts wandering vaguely toward the assortment of food trucks and tents while he waits for a response. He’s sure that none of the things they’ve got to offer could possibly be good for the state of his hips, or his arteries for that matter, but it can’t hurt to look.  
  
He’s just approaching a toffee apple stand when something collides heavily with his back, almost knocking him flat on his face. He lets out an undignified squawk, wrestling out of the alarmingly strong grasp of a smallish set of arms, and when he manages to turn around, there is one Niall Horan grinning at him like a lunatic.  
  
“Louis, mate. This is the best thing this school has ever done,” Niall says manically, apparently impervious to the rays of pure disdain shooting from Louis’ eyes. He reaches up and cups Louis’ face roughly in both hands, as if about to impart the great secret of life. “They have fried butter, man. Fried. Butter.”  
  
He laughs a short, terrifying laugh, and then he’s gone, rushing off into the crowd.  
  
Louis lifts a hand to his face in shock. There are smears of grease on his face where Niall’s hands were on it. Oh, Horan will pay for this. A boundless supply of crap food may have given him some kind of lard-fueled invincibility, but nobody jeopardizes Louis Tomlinson’s complexion and lives to tell the tale.  
  
He’s pulled out of his vengeful reverie by the buzz of his phone.  
  
 _ring toss!!!!!!_  Harry’s message reads. Christ. How has he managed to surround himself with so many people that are so genuinely enthusiastic about these things?  
  
He sighs and weaves his way through the crowds until he finds Harry at the ring toss, as promised. He’s got a red scarf tucked into his pea coat and his camera bag strapped across his chest, looking every inch a respectable twenty-something artistic-type if it weren’t for the studied seriousness of his ring toss stance. Louis holds back a snort of laughter at the way he’s chewing on his lower lip, contemplating his next throw.  
  
“Ring toss champion Harold Styles lines up his final toss,” Louis says in his best announcer voice. Harry looks up, surprised, but then grins when he sees who it is. He looks back at the game with a furrowed brow, playing along. “He’s going for the gold here,” Louis continues. “It’s all riding on this, the last toss of a legend…”  
  
Harry throws the ring, which goes clattering off the tops of the bottles.  
  
“No!” Louis shouts loudly, throwing up his hands and startling several nearby students. “What a blunder! You can only imagine the shock of the fans, of the people watching at home! What a colossal mistake! Oh, the humanity—” but then Harry’s up in his space, putting a hand over his mouth even as he laughs.  
  
“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” he says, smiling. “Stop making me feel worse about it.”  
  
He slides his hand off Louis’ mouth, and Louis ignores the fact that he can still feel his face flushing a bit from the sudden contact. Not for the first time in his life (or today, even), he thanks God for his ability to maintain a tan. He recovers quickly, sticking his tongue out at Harry.  
  
“I am,” Harry says, leaning in conspiratorially, “surprisingly bad at this game. Been trying to win for a solid ten minutes, wasted half my tickets.”  
  
Louis raises his eyebrows. “Surely there are better things you could be doing. Niall seems very adamant about the virtues of the fried butter.”  
  
Harry grins and shrugs. “It’s fun. And when I win, which I  _will_ ,” he says, pointing a finger at Louis’ doubtful look, “my victory will be all the sweeter.”  
  
He tears off another ticket and hands it to the female student at the booth for another round. The girl hands him three more rings with a studied air of weariness that Louis can’t help but admire.  
  
“I suppose there is a certain tragic romantic appeal in continuing to play a game you know is rigged,” Louis says, leaning against the booth. He winks at the girl, who stares back at him blankly for a second before returning to her phone.  
  
Snorting, Harry lines up another shot. “You know it’s possible to enjoy things non-ironically, right?” He tosses the ring and curses under his breath when it goes skittering off the bottles. He looks up at Louis with a mix of humor and concern in his eyes. “Healthy, even.”  
  
“Ah, yes, non-ironic enjoyment,” Louis says, gazing off into the distance. “I knew it once, in the halcyon days of my youth.”  
  
Harry points at him, ring in hand. “I will break you of your cynicism yet. I will win one of these prizes for you, and you will be forced to admit that good things do happen in this world.”  
  
Louis barks a laugh. “If you actually manage to win me a prize, I swear on my mother’s uninhabited grave that I will attempt to sincerely enjoy this fair.”  
  
“Challenge accepted,” Harry says, striking an athletic pose before tossing the second ring. Another miss. “God  _damn_  it,” he says, and then nods a quick “sorry” to the booth attendant. “How is this game actually this difficult? Am I defective?”  
  
“I told you already, young Harold. This game is rigged, and you are wasting your time. More importantly, you are wasting my time,” Louis says archly.  
  
“A rigged game can still be won, Tommo,” Harry says. Then he catches the last ring between his fingers and holds it up to Louis’ mouth. “Blow.”  
  
Louis stares at him. “You can’t be serious.”  
  
Harry just taps the ring lightly against Louis’ lips, his stare expectant and unwavering. “Blow.”  
  
Louis needs to pretend that the insistent way Harry’s looking at him isn’t making his brain chemistry run riot, so he makes a show of rolling his eyes and huffs out a breath through pursed lips.  
  
Grinning like he’s already won, Harry turns back to the game, takes a deep breath, and tosses the ring. Louis watches as it bounces, bounces, and lands with a tinny clink around the neck of one of the bottles.  
  
“Yes!” Harry yells, throwing up his arms in pure joy. “Victory is  _mine_!”  
  
“What,” Louis says.  
  
“I believe I have earned a prize, have I not?” Harry says to the booth girl.  
  
She nods and snaps her gum. “What d’you want?” she asks, jerking her head towards the shelf behind her.  
  
“I think I shall take that magnificent stuffed bear, thank you,” Harry says. When she hands it to him, he immediately turns to Louis, who still hasn’t quite been able to stop staring at the ring around the bottle. It worked. Harry won. There is a God, and he is a dick.  
  
Harry pushes the rather sizeable bear into Louis’ arms. “Sorry, Lou,” he says with a smirk that says he is definitely not sorry at all. “Looks like you’re going to have to be happy tonight, whether you want to or not.”  
  
Louis gapes at him, helpless and clutching a comically large bear to his chest, and tries to pull himself together. Harry wants happy, sincere Louis? Fine.  _Fine_. “I suppose a deal’s a deal,” he says. “What wonders shall we enjoy next, oh fearless leader?”  
  
“Oh, no you don’t,” Harry says, shaking a finger at Louis. “That’s still making fun of it, and that wasn’t the deal. I don’t want you to be ridiculous, or to fake anything.” He smiles softly. “Just relax and enjoy yourself. You think you can manage that?” he asks, poking Louis in the side. “You think that’s in the realm of possibility?”  
  
Louis sighs and hugs the bear closer. At least the bear doesn’t try to make him do things. Or feel things. “Yes,” he mutters into the soft fur petulantly.  
  
Harry smiles like all his birthdays have come at once. “Brilliant.” He grabs Louis by the upper arm and starts walking toward the food area. “Now what were you saying about fried butter?”  
  
They wander between the various booths offering refreshment, admiring what’s on offer, and Harry ends up trading two tickets for a bag of deep-fried Oreos. He doesn’t make Louis try that particular horrific concoction, but he smiles when Louis bites into a sausage with relish.  
  
“I know I shouldn’t,” Louis says, wiping grease off his bottom lip with his thumb, “And I know they're full of, like, pig anuses and whatnot, but they’re just too good to turn down.”  
  
“I know precisely what you mean,” Harry says, grinning at him. Louis feels a white-hot bolt of wishful thinking run through him, imagining what exactly Harry could be talking about. He has just enough time to think, _wait, would he be implying I was full of pig anuses_  before that train of thought is derailed by the sight of Niall sprawled across a bench.  
  
“Whatcha doin’, Nialler?” he calls out in a sing-song tone. Niall opens his eyes and fixes Louis with a gaze. His face is the face of a man at peace.  
  
“Digesting,” he says. He squints. “Where’d the bear come from?”  
  
“I won it for Louis at ring toss,” Harry says proudly, and hearing it in the presence of someone else makes Louis hyperaware of how it sounds, of what it could mean to objective ears. He freezes, hanging on Niall’s reaction.  
  
“Cute,” Niall says, closing his eyes. And maybe he doesn’t read anything into it, or is too sated to care, but Louis knows someone else would ask questions, would look at Louis for answers and read the truth that’s written even in the way he walks, swaying closer to Harry with every step. He’s a pathetic bastard, even his cat knows it, and the only thing that’s keeping it under wraps is Niall’s codependent relationship with food.  
  
“I try,” Harry says, turning to smile at Louis, and it’s almost too much. “You could return the favor, you know,” he points out.  
  
“What, win you something?” Louis asks, incredulous.  
  
“Unless you don’t think you’ve got the skills.” Harry looks at Louis, all wide-eyed innocence, and Louis is going to interpret the heat that pools in his stomach as healthy competitiveness and nothing else.  
  
“Please, Styles, as if you’re any match for me. Let’s head back to the games, I’ll win so many plush toys you’ll choke on them.”  
  
“Is that a promise?” Harry asks, quirking an eyebrow, and honestly, fuck him.  
  
“It’s a threat,” Louis intones, trying to look as scary as one can while holding a giant teddy bear.  
  
Harry bursts out laughing at that. “Fair enough. You head over and pick a game, I’ll meet you there,” he says. “I’ve got to use the toilet, and I figure you’ll need plenty of time to get in the zone.”  
  
“I live in the zone, Styles!” Louis shouts at Harry’s retreating back. He sighs as soon as he’s out of sight.  
  
“You two make me want to vomit,” Niall says sleepily from the bench, his eyes still closed.  
  
“That’s probably just all the kebabs you’ve just shoved into your gob,” Louis says. He throws the remains of his sausage at him.  
  
Five minutes later he finds himself in front of the balloons and darts booth, struggling to pop a single one.  
  
"Suddenly I feel much better about my ring toss skills," says a voice behind him, and by now Louis knows that voice well enough that he doesn't even have to turn around.  
  
"Not now, Styles, I'm concentrating," Louis tells him. He holds the tip of his tongue between his teeth and tries very hard to keep his eyes on the balloons in front of him and not Harry sauntering up beside him, smiling as he props one hip up against the edge of the booth. He's got a cloud of cotton candy in each hand. One for himself and one for Louis. Damn it all.  
  
"One dart left," Harry observes. "Pressure's on."  
  
"You mock my ambitions," Louis says. "Some people take the sport of balloon popping very seriously."  
  
"I am being serious," Harry says. "How else am I going to get my hands on one of those bears?"  
  
"By winning your own, you lazy arse," Louis says. He lines up his shot, adjusts his glasses, aims—  
  
And misses completely, dart landing wide left, because Harry chooses that moment to casually lick the crystallized sugar off of one long, slender finger.  
  
"Guess I'll have to, then," Harry says. He's smirking when Louis turns to look at him properly, and Louis could almost swear the whole thing was on purpose.  
  
"Nobody likes a smartarse," Louis says. He snatches his cotton candy out of Harry's hand.  
  
"Cheers," Harry says, taking an enormous bite of his own. When he speaks again, little bits of pink fluff fly everywhere. "Well, we found Niall. Where's Zayn?"  
  
"Over there, hidden behind the horny masses," Louis says, pointing across the carpark to the crowd that's queued up.  
  
“Ah, he’s still on his shift?” Harry asks, picking bits of cotton candy from his fringe.  
  
“So it would seem, the poor lad,” Louis says with a theatrical sigh. “You know, I think he only suggested the kissing booth as a joke, like in that movie he likes so much? The one that's the Shakespeare retelling? But people were remarkably enthusiastic about the idea.”  
  
Harry snorts. “Wonder why.” The line is immense, full of female students, teachers, and what appear to be a few of the students’ mothers. “Do you think we still have a chance? Line’s moving quickly.”  
  
“Have a chance? I’ll throw elbows if I have to,” Louis says, and strides across the carpark, Harry close behind.  
  
In line, Louis looks around, observing. Harry’s right, the line is moving quickly, aided in part by the strictly-enforced cheek-kiss-only rule. Louis sees about half of his actresses in line, giggling to each other over their own nerve, and he makes a mental note to remind Zayn to come looking as frumpy as possible next time he comes to help paint the set during rehearsal.  
  
Harry nods his head over to a cluster of boys off to the side. “Some of my lads over there, watching the show. Think they’re jealous?”  
  
Louis gives them a once-over, noticing that not all of them are watching the girls. “Jealous of who?” he says wryly.  
  
Eyes bugging, Harry looks back at his players. “You don’t think— _interesting_ ,” he says. Louis just hopes the redheaded one learns to keep his eyes to himself if he wants to be anywhere near subtle.  
  
Before Harry can say anything else, it’s their turn. Zayn looks only moderately homicidal, both his cheeks colored by several layers of lipgloss and lipstick, until he looks up to see who his next customer is. The absolute despair that comes over his face when he sees them makes Louis extremely proud of himself.  
  
“Get it over quick, would you,” he says, with the air of a man condemned.  
  
“My love!” Louis cries, setting the bear on the ground. “So long we have been parted, but no longer! At last, I have found you again, and from this day forth we shall never be separated.” He drapes himself across Zayn’s booth, and Zayn’s hands fly into the air like someone’s just spilled something unpleasant on him.  
  
“Swear you shall set these, these  _pretenders_  aside and remain with me forevermore,” Louis continues, gesturing expansively to the bemused members of the line behind him. Harry, for his part, is laughing uproariously. “Swear to me, my one and only. Light of my life, fire of my loins, my Zaynlita.”  
  
Zayn looks down at him with an impassive face that would be frightening if Louis weren’t congenitally immune to threats from men with lip imprints on their face. “I will dedicate my life to making sure that the remains of your body are as small as possible,” he says.  
  
“Good enough for me,” Louis says. He stands up, tears a ticket off, and holds it between his teeth. He raises his eyebrows at Zayn and looks down at the ticket suggestively. God, he is hilarious.  
  
“Not a fucking chance,” Zayn says, and snatches the ticket with his hands. He grabs Louis by the cheeks and kisses him roughly on the forehead before shoving him away. “Next!”  
  
Louis stands aside as Harry walks up, sedately hands Zayn his ticket, and then leaps over the booth to tackle him to the ground. Watching them wrestle in the dirt as scandalized fair-goers look on, Louis commends himself on his choice in friends and retrieves the bear.  
  
When Zayn finally breaks free, he’s roughed up but smiling. He shoves Harry out from behind the booth and into Louis, who catches him by the shoulders with the arm that isn’t holding the bear. His fingers curl into the collar of Harry’s coat, and Harry looks him right in the eye as they both try not to fall over laughing. Yeah, Louis maybe likes these people a little bit.  
  
Zayn goes to sit back behind the booth but is stopped by one of the maths teachers from the second floor corridor in Louis’ building. His name begins with a B, but Louis can’t quite remember it with Harry ducking under his arm. Bradley? Bennett? Benjamin? Whoever he is, Zayn looks thrilled to see him.  
  
“Your shift’s up, Malik,” he says, clapping Zayn on the shoulder. There is an audible groan from the gathered crowd, and Louis sees one girl violently throw an ice cream cone to the ground as Zayn stands and the maths teacher takes his place. Bernard? Barry?  
  
“Thanks, George,” Zayn says, and okay, you can’t win them all. “Good luck.” George gives a salute as Zayn walks past Harry and Louis.  
  
“Oi, where are you going?” Louis calls after him. Zayn turns but keeps walking backwards.  
  
“I’m going to, uh, check out the rides. Make sure they’re up to safety code, you know,” he says, coloring. “Just in case.”  
  
“You’re no fun anymore!” Louis yells at his back. Harry, still under Louis’ arm, just blows a raspberry. Louis, for reasons he can’t explain, lightly headbutts Harry in the temple. “Where to next, then?” he asks, and Harry shrugs.  
  
“You haven’t won me a prize yet,” he points out idly, and Louis tips his head back and groans.  
  
They wander back towards the games, and Louis spends about half an hour and most of his tickets discovering that he is, apparently, not good at any of them. Harry is supremely unhelpful, whispering into Louis’ ear while he tries to shoot ducks and standing in his way during pin the tail on the donkey. Blindfolded, Louis walks right into him, and Harry just laughs.  
  
Louis sighs and pulls the blindfold up. “You know, you might actually get something if you stop messing with me. You’re working against your own interests, here.”  
  
Harry grins and pulls the blindfold back down. “I’m a complicated man,” he says, spinning Louis around again.  
  
“You’re a complicated dick,” Louis mutters, but he flails around for the donkey anyway.  
  
Finally, several failures later, Louis is on his final ticket. He holds it up to Harry. “Last shot at a prize. How shall I waste it?” Harry looks thoughtfully at the ticket, but then shakes his head.  
  
“No prize. Come on, let’s find the others, I want to get a photo of everyone.”  
  
Harry texts Niall and Louis texts Zayn, and five minutes later they’re assembled in front of the Ferris wheel. It’s lit up now, lights blinking against the darkening evening sky. Louis remembers how shoddy it looked a few hours ago and wonders when exactly it started to seem appealing. He turns to Zayn to remark on it, but is distracted by the morose expression on his face.  
  
“Christ, what farted in your cotton candy?” he asks, poking Zayn in the stomach.  
  
Zayn sighs. “Nothing, it’s just—I checked this whole place over and everything’s up to code. These guys, they really know their stuff.” He glowers up at the Ferris wheel. “Not even a fucking rusty bolt, much less a fire hazard.”  
  
“Sorry, mate,” Harry says, “On the bright side, Louis is absolute rubbish at fair games.”  
  
Louis nods. “I truly am.”  
  
He swears he can see Zayn’s quiff perk up. “Really?”  
  
“It’s an embarrassment to the human race,” he admits.  
  
“That does cheer me up,” Zayn says. Harry claps him on the shoulder.  
  
“Good, can’t have you crying in the pictures.” Niall says. Harry flags down a passing student and hands her his camera. The four of them line up, Zayn next to Louis next to Harry next to Niall, arms around each others’ shoulders, though one of Louis’ is occupied by the bear.  
  
“Three, two, one…” the girl says, and as the flash goes off, Louis hoists the bear up in front of his face.  
  
Harry cuffs the back of his head. “Tosser,” he says affectionately, and goes to retrieve his camera, thanking the girl. He looks at the digital display and laughs. “Oh, this one’s going on the wall.” When the other three try to sneak a look at the screen he hides it, batting them away. “You’ll see it when I give you prints, get off.”  
  
Niall stretches and lets out a small burp. “All right, lads, I’m headed home.” He goes down the line and pats all of them on the head, even the bear. “I am going to sleep for a very long time, and it’s going to be fucking amazing. See you on Monday!” He waves and walks toward the carpark as the others chorus their goodbyes after him.  
  
“I think that’s it for me, too,” Zayn says, shuffling his feet.  
  
“Aw, Zayn,” Harry wheedles. “I’ll let you beat me at the test-your-strength thing if you stay.”  
  
“Appreciate the offer, but nah.” Zayn pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket and puts one between his lips. “I’ve had enough excitement for one night, I think.” He lights up and takes a weary drag that Louis knows for a fact he’s practiced in front of a mirror.  
  
“If you say so,” Louis says. “Just know that if you burn your flat down in a melancholic fury I’m not letting you sleep on my couch.”  
  
“Cheers,” Zayn says, and heads off.  
  
They watch him slouch off. “A hundred people queued up to kiss him today and he’s still miserable,” Louis says. “Not sure if I should be annoyed or impressed.”  
  
“Nah, I get it. Doesn’t really count unless it’s the right one.” Harry says, a smile at the corner of his lips. “You ready to spend your last ticket?”  
  
“I was born ready, Harold,” Louis says, bumping Harry’s shoulder with his. “What’s the plan?”  
  
Harry just points up at the Ferris wheel, and Louis’ stomach twists like a balloon animal. “Seems like a fitting end to the night, yeah?” Louis just nods.  
  
The queue moves quickly enough that he doesn’t have time to try to remember the last time he was actually excited to ride a Ferris wheel. When they reach the ticket-taker, she stops them. “It’s three to a car.”  
  
Harry grabs the bear from Louis’ arms. “He’s our third.” He hands the girl two tickets from his tape and walks briskly by, holding Louis’ arm, and Louis has just enough time to hand her his last ticket before he’s dragged past and into a car. Harry puts the bear in the far seat and claims the middle for himself, leaving Louis the seat on the end.  
  
“Cozy,” Louis jokes, settling himself in, and the ride operator locks the bar over their laps.  
  
The wheel starts turning, lifting them up, and Louis is once again thrown into a moment of extreme, acute awareness. This time, though, he’s not worried about what any else thinks. Every part of him focuses instead on this narrow bench on a Ferris wheel and Harry’s solid weight pressed up against his side and the fact that there’s nowhere for him to run, not even a spare inch of space between his body and the side of the car. Just himself and Harry and a giant bear and all of the things he’s afraid he can’t keep quiet.  
  
“You’re not afraid of heights or anything, right?” Louis looks over to find Harry looking back at him with concern, and he’s confused until he realises his hands are clenched in his lap, knuckles white.  
  
He forces himself to relax. “No worries,” he says brightly, and the slow spread of Harry’s smile has him in pieces. He’s not afraid of heights, but he’s been in too many shows not to know nerves when he has them.  
  
They sit quietly, looking out at the view as their car climbs higher and higher and the sounds and colors of the fair grow fainter below. Louis places his hands on his knees and keeps them still, eyes fixed on the loose way Harry’s hands hang over the bar spanning their laps. They’re so close, and it would be so easy to just reach out and tangle their fingers together. He can imagine Harry’s palm broad and warm against his, his fingers sugar-sticky on the back of his hand, and, God, when was the last time he wanted to hold somebody’s hand? Suspended in this tiny, contained space, he can’t keep ignoring what he’s been feeling all night. Louis is sitting on a carnival ride with a boy who makes him nervous, and he has not felt like this since he was seventeen.  
  
When they reach the top, the wheel creaks to a halt, and they’re alone with the stars and the lights of Manchester. Louis looks out to the city skyline and soaks in the warmth of the person next to him and thinks of how strange it feels to not want to be anywhere else, or with anyone else. He doesn’t know how to handle it. Maybe he used to, but he doesn’t anymore.  
  
He clears his throat loudly, and Harry looks over at him. “Penny for your thoughts?”  
  
“Why?” Harry asks, as if Louis has an answer for  _why_  anything anymore, especially with him.  
  
“Bit boring, sitting here in silence,” Louis says, trying to keep his tone light. He should have known better than to trust his voice, as weak and wavering as the rest of him.  
  
Harry just shakes his head softly, eye contact like a tether. “I’m not bored,” he says, and looks back out across the city, a smile playing across his lips. “You aren’t bored.”  
  
Louis stares at a point on the horizon and tries to ignore the uneven drag of his own lungs. “I suppose not.”  
  
He braves another look at Harry, and it almost knocks the breath out of him. He’s in profile next to Louis, looking out into the distance, immediate and warm and so fucking beautiful. The lights from the Ferris wheel hit him just right, touching the ends of his lashes and the dip of his lower lip and the place where his hair falls across his temple and curls against his cheekbone, casting a halo around his curls in bright pink and yellow. Louis wants to kiss him more than he’s ever wanted to kiss anyone in his life.  
  
The ride shudders back into motion and Louis pulls his eyes away. They don’t speak for the rest of the ride. Every nerve ending in Louis’ body is right up against the surface, spine to fingertips, straining to the very borders of him in an attempt to get to Harry. It feels like the last moment before a static shock, before the bolt arches across a gap, and Louis can’t let that happen. So he keeps his hands on his knees.  
  
By the time Louis gets out of the car his legs are weak like he’s run a marathon. Harry climbs out after him, tugging the bear along by the arm, and Louis can’t help but grin at the sight of him.  
  
“Sadly, I’m afraid that’s the end of the night for me,” Louis says, making a try for casual now that the ground’s back under his feet.  
  
“All good things,” Harry says. He heaves the bear back up into his arms, and they start wandering in the direction of the parking area.  
  
Louis stares at his shoes and matches Harry’s slow pace, pretending for the sake of his own sanity that this was just a fun night with a good friend and nothing more, that he doesn’t want anything else. And it was fun, really. Harry had been right.  
  
“This was nice,” Louis says suddenly. He doesn’t remember making the decision to speak, but it’s too late to go back now. “I’m, um. I’m glad I came.” He elbows Harry, knocking him sideways a bit. “Even if it was only because you forced me to.”  
  
Harry laughs and gives him a light shove back. “You’re welcome. For the bear, too.”  
  
He holds it out to Louis, shaking it a little so the stuffed legs flop around, and Louis takes it from him haughtily. “No more than I deserve.”  
  
Harry laughs again. “Too right.”  
  
They walk in silence for another moment before Harry looks over and says, “I’m glad I met you.”  
  
It hangs in the air between them, and Louis wants to grab onto that too, wants to shove it inside his coat and keep it there. One day he will stop being surprised by the things Harry is willing to say out loud.  
  
“Yeah?” he says.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry confirms, looking pleased with himself.  
  
Louis can’t do anything about the smile that creeps across his face as they keep walking. “Good.” He notices then that they’re reaching the edge of the car park, and he pauses. “Where’d you park, Hazza?”  
  
Harry stops in his tracks. “Back there,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. “I was following you.”  
  
Louis lets out a weak little laugh. “I’m that way.” He points in another direction. “Thought I was following you.”  
  
“Oh,” Harry says, laughing a little too, one hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “I guess this is where we part ways, then.” He kicks at the gravel on the ground.  
  
“Well, I’ll, uh—” Louis searches for words that aren’t going to give him away. “I’ll see you on Monday, I suppose.”  
  
Harry nods. “Yeah, Monday.” He’s looking at Louis with his brow furrowed, like he’s trying to sort something out in his own head.  
  
“Well,” Louis says. “Bye.”  
  
“Bye,” Harry says back, but doesn’t move, still watching Louis.  
  
The lights of the car park cast long shadows on Harry’s face, and from this close Louis can count every one. He thinks of autumn and home and being seventeen and believing in things that he hardly even mentions by name in his own head anymore. He thinks of colored lights and Harry’s hands, and he feels like he’s back up on the Ferris wheel alone, something tiny hanging over something so much bigger than himself. There’s an edge, and there’s him, and he can’t seem to stop himself from moving closer and closer. He takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, closes it again, and then turns on his heel and walks away.  
  
He hurries to his car, afraid to look back, and the gravel crunches  _idiot idiot idiot_  underfoot.

 

 

 

**Chapter 4.**

Zayn has this sort of image in his head of how it should happen when he and Liam finally get together.  
  
It’s a fantasy, mostly, but when the man of your dreams is a fireman, it’s hard to not get carried away. He usually imagines some emergency, some climactic moment where his life is in danger, and then Liam swoops in, propelled by his confusing fascination with Zayn’s sex appeal and intelligence and brooding nature, and rescues him from certain death. Driven mad by fear for Zayn, Liam has no choice but to confess his undying love, perhaps even while his skin is still sooty from the flames. Also he is shirtless.  
  
Naturally, this scenario could play out in a variety of settings: his flat, the school, a beautiful villa in the south of France. Zayn has a contingency plan for each one. So when the fire alarm goes off unexpectedly during second period, he’s ready. This is the day Zayn has trained for. His day of days. The day someone pulled the fire alarm.  
  
He’s in the middle of a spirited discussion of literary devices in  _Wuthering_ _Heights_  when it happens. He leaps out of his chair, snatching up his jacket and checking his hair frantically in the mirror he keeps in his desk drawer before rounding up his students and leading them outside. It’s been storming all morning—the perfect weather for a dramatic confession of love, if you ask Zayn—so they all end up huddled under an awning, waiting for the fire department to arrive.  
  
But the firefighters come streaming out of the truck and Zayn stands there in the car park with his two dozen bedraggled teenagers and Liam never comes. Attractive men pile out of the firetruck whose sirens were supposed to sing the song of Zayn’s destiny, and not one of them is Liam.  
  
One of his students tugs on his sleeve. “Mr. Malik? I think we’re allowed back inside now.”  
  
“Go back in if you like,” he says, staring angrily at the firetruck. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.” He turns to look at the girl. “Hope is a lie.” She stares back, and whatever she sees in his eyes makes her quail and turn back around, shepherding the rest of the students back inside.  
  
Eventually he joins them, and no one mentions his absence as they continue their discussion of Cathy and Heathcliff. Zayn could use a wuthering moor of his own right now. This is the worst day of his life, and he doesn’t quite know how to express it without period costuming and scenery.  
  
The rest of the day passes in a haze of having to talk to people who aren’t Liam, and soon enough Zayn finds himself at home, contemplating another dinner for one in front of the television. Or he would be, if there were food in his flat. His cupboards are as empty as his soul.  
  
And so he’s at Tesco now, trudging up and down the frozen food aisle. If there’s a modern equivalent to wandering a moor in an open waistcoat, this is it.  
  
There’s a sale on frozen peas, apparently. That’s what Zayn deserves to eat: discount frozen peas. Zayn is the discount frozen peas of humanity. He reaches for a bag, but his hand bumps into someone else’s first. He’d been so engrossed in his own ennui that he hadn’t even realised someone else was in the aisle.  
  
“Sorry,” Zayn mumbles, withdrawing his hand just as the other person does the same, and then his eyes flick upward and his mind goes completely and utterly blank.  
  
Liam. Right in front of him. In the frozen foods aisle. He’s wearing a plaid shirt and he’s got a basket full of shopping in one hand and Zayn is going into cardiac arrest right there next to the peas.  
  
“Zayn!” Liam says, smiling at him as if every day is the best day of his life. Zayn wants to kiss him on the mouth. “How’ve you been, mate?”  
  
“Yes,” Zayn says automatically, because the ability to comprehend human speech has apparently been shocked out of him in the last five seconds. “I mean, fine. Shopping. And, such. You know.” He holds up his bag of vegetables helplessly. “Lettuce.”  
  
He is identifying vegetables. Things are bleak.  
  
“Good, good,” Liam says, still smiling. “Heard you lot had a bit of a scare today, didn’t you?”  
  
For a moment, Zayn honestly hasn’t the faintest clue what in God’s name Liam is talking about, but then it clicks. Right. The fire alarm. That thing he was upset about all day.  
  
“Oh, yeah, somebody pulled the alarm,” Zayn manages. “It was all right, though. No blazing infernos to report.”  
  
He doesn’t know what’s coming out of his mouth, but it makes Liam laugh, so he considers it a small victory.  
  
“Too bad I had the morning off, we might’ve seen each other,” Liam says. “Spent half the day on the sofa eating biscuits instead. That’s why I’m here, actually. Restocking the cupboard. Funny how that worked out, isn’t it?”  
  
 _Destiny_ , Zayn wants to scream in his face. “Funny, yeah.”  
  
“Eating alone, then?” Liam says.  
  
 _Yes, so alone, oh God, couldn’t be more alone if I tried_ , he thinks, but he can’t say that. He’s already standing in the freezer section in his sadness hoodie. He doesn’t need to give Liam any more evidence that he doesn’t actually have a life.  
  
“No,” he lies.  
  
“Right,” Liam says, shaking his head. “I’m sure you’ve got plans.”  
  
“No,” Zayn says quickly, panicking, “I haven’t got plans with anybody.”  
  
Liam stares at him for a moment, furrowing his brow, and Zayn wonders how hard he’d have to smash his own head into the freezer door to cause instant death.  
  
The universe must have other plans for his demise, though, because Liam just claps him on the shoulder. “That’s really profound, mate. Not having plans doesn’t mean you’re alone. No man is an island, I get it.” He nods to himself, looking moved. “Well, I should probably get a move on. Sounds like the rain’s stopped for a while, might be able to get out of here before it comes back.”  
  
“Right,” Zayn says, nodding too hard. “Yeah.”  
  
“Good to see you, Zayn,” Liam says with a smile, and then he turns and heads off down the aisle.  
  
“Wait, Liam,” Zayn blurts out at his retreating back.  
  
Liam pauses, turning around to look at Zayn. “Yeah?”  
  
“I, um,” Zayn starts. What the fuck was he going to say? Think of something, Malik, think. “I’ve been worrying about my building lately. Um, where I live. Not sure everything’s, you know, up to code and all that.” It’s the best he can do when he’s looking Liam in the face. Maybe he’ll come by later and check things out and then when he sees Zayn leaning casually against his door he’ll suddenly be struck by the realisation that his soulmate has been standing right in front of him all along and then they’ll kiss and Zayn will throw a parade.  
  
Liam frowns, and Zayn almost feels bad about lying to him. “That’s no good. Tell you what,” he says, coming back down the aisle. “Why don’t I give you my number, and you can keep an eye out and ring me if you notice anything.”  
  
It takes a moment for anything to penetrate the five million exclamation points that just sprang up inside his head.  
  
“Okay, yeah,” Zayn says when he finally regains control of his body, scrambling to pull his phone out of his pocket. “Sounds brilliant.” Liam is going to give him his number. It’s work-related, and technically under false pretenses, but still Liam is giving him his number. He will have a direct line to Liam at all times. They’re basically married.  
  
After Liam reads off his number, Zayn double- and triple-checks that he’s got it right before saving it to his phone. “If you spot anything fishy, let me know and I’ll see if I can’t sort it out,” Liam says earnestly. If Zayn is discount frozen peas, Liam is premium filet mignon in human form. Just, you know. Less French.  
  
“I will.” Zayn nods eagerly. “I will absolutely ring you.” And then he will put a ring on it.  
  
Liam’s face crinkles up into a smile. Zayn wants to build a shrine to it. “Wonderful. Anyway, I’ve got to run. Enjoy your dinner.” He gives Zayn a tiny wave. Zayn starts to return it before realising he probably looks ridiculous, so he does his best to make it look like he meant to run his hand through his hair.  
  
“Yeah, cheers. You too. Man.” He aims for nonchalance but he thinks he may have missed the mark. Liam just keeps smiling, though, and disappears around the corner. Zayn manages to keep it together for a full ten seconds before he collapses against the freezer door. He is never doubting destiny again, so long as he lives.  
  
This vow lasts until he’s paying the cashier, when he realises that he didn’t give Liam his number in return and drops his change all over the floor. Oh, bugger destiny with a rake.

  
**L**

  
  
Louis really does like his job, but he doesn’t like every second of it. Especially not right now, hunched over his desk after hours, looking over the first drafts of his students’ final compositions for the term. He could be at home right now, getting cozy with The Only Way is Essex, but there are only a few weeks left before Christmas hols and his kids are going to need all the help they can get.  
  
Louis sighs and circles a line on the pages in front of him in pen.  _This character entered stage left two pages ago_ , he writes in the margins,  _so while having him enter again stage right here without having mentioned him ever leaving is a fascinating choice, you should probably change it unless you plan on introducing evil twins as a plot point._  He taps the end of the pen against his teeth thoughtfully. Too harsh… or not harsh enough?  
  
As he bends the pen to paper again, Harry opens the door. He doesn’t say hello, just tosses a mesh bag of footballs to one side and stalks to the desk nearest Louis’. He sits down heavily, not looking at Louis, then stands up after a moment to walk back to the door and close it. He returns to his seat and scrubs a hand over his face before finally meeting Louis’ eyes.  
  
Louis considers telling him he’s sitting at the desk where Jeremy Givens sticks all his gum, but decides that this isn’t the time. “Hi. Talk to me. Are you all right?”  
  
Harry’s leg is bouncing up and down, as if he can’t quite accept stillness. “No,” he says, not looking away from Louis. “I mean, yes, I’m fine, and that’s what—Jesus. I’m angry.” He looks quickly out the window with what’s almost a smile, but by the time he meets Louis’ eyes again it’s a grimace. “You can keep something—you can respect student confidentiality, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah, of course, what—” Louis starts, but Harry’s already pushed out of his seat and pacing in front of Louis’ desk.  
  
“You know Richards? Tom Richards? Tallish, spiky hair, one of my strikers?” Louis nods. “I asked him to stay behind after practice because he seemed off his game. He wasn’t passing to the other forward we had playing, Mike Kendall, wasn’t linking up properly with him at all, and those two can practically read each others’ minds normally.” He pulls that almost-smile again, and Louis hates that look already. “I was actually worried about him. I thought, I don’t know, I thought maybe something was wrong at home.”  
  
Harry still hasn’t stopped moving. “And so I ask him, after practice, it’s just us, I ask him what’s going on, and you know what he tells me?” He pauses and meets Louis’ eyes. “He says that he and Kendall aren’t speaking, aren’t friends anymore, because apparently Kendall told Richards that he’s gay, not that Richards put it in those terms.” The pacing resumes. “He tells me—this boy on my team, who’s been playing with all these guys for months—that he doesn’t want to play with Kendall anymore, that he’s already told the other lads.” His hand on the back of his neck, he falls heavily back into his seat. “Christ, Louis, I’ve never wanted to hit a student before, but I nearly lost it.”  
  
Louis forces his fingers to unbend from the fist they’ve formed, from around the script page he’s crumpled into a ball. “What—” he clears his throat, “what did you do?”  
  
“I told him that under the circumstances, I didn’t want him playing with Kendall either, or on any team of mine, and that he was benched until further notice,” Harry says, drumming his fingers on the desk. His eyes are ablaze, and Louis can’t decide if he should be more frightened for or of him.  
  
“Jesus, Haz.”  
  
“I know, Lou, I know but—fuck, I don’t care, he betrayed the team and the trust of a teammate and, Jesus, I feel like he betrayed me because I  _liked_  this kid,” he says all in rush, leaning forward and putting his head in his hands. “And, fuck, Louis, tomorrow I’m going to have to tell Kendall that the team knows, that I know, when I have no fucking business knowing, and I’m not…” he takes a few deep breaths and shakes his head, “I’m not doing that and making him play with the prick who did it to him, too. No. Fuck that. I don’t care.”  
  
Louis looks at the line of Harry’s shoulders, strung tight as a bowstring. He’s almost afraid to move, unable to cope with everything radiating off of the man in front of him. “He’s lucky that it’s someone like you who’s dealing with it,” he manages, but his words feel pale and useless compared to the pure energy vibrating out of Harry.  
  
Harry lets out a harsh laugh. “He’s not lucky. There’s nothing about this that’s lucky. If there’s—Jesus, if anyone’s lucky it’s me, Lou.” He looks up, and Louis can see the redness of his eyes, the wetness of his lashes. He looks like a Rembrandt, like an oil painting of firelight. “I hate that. I hate that the fact that I made it out of school without any of this bullshit makes me lucky. I hate being thankful for getting something that, that Kendall and everyone else shouldn’t even have to think about asking for. They should just get it.”  
  
If Louis was afraid to move before, he can barely breathe now. The air seems stretched thin, a rubber band about to snap.  
  
Harry swallows thickly. “My friends didn’t care, and my parents were great, and it’s not like there were any other guys who liked guys at my high school, so I just ended up dating girls anyway. And it was fine. And nobody cared. And fuck, Louis, I thought that meant that things were changing, that things were better, but they  _aren’t_ , I just got fucking  _lucky_.” He wipes a hand over his face. “I just feel… I feel really stupid, and I can’t do anything about it.”  
  
The room is silent except for Harry’s heavy breaths and the sound of Louis’ brain shorting out. “Hazza,” Louis says. “Haz.” Harry won’t look at him. Fuck it. Louis can deal with processing this information later.  
  
He stands and comes around the desk, drops into a seat next to Harry. “Harry, Christ, you’re already doing something.” He almost doesn’t hesitate before sliding his hand behind Harry’s neck. “You can let that shithead rot on the bench for the rest of the season, first off.” That gets a slightly watery smile out of Harry, and part of Louis’ brain does backflips. “And you can be there for Kendall. You can have his back. That’s—” after all Harry’s said, he feels guilty for even taking a breath, “that’s more than anyone ever did for me, all right?” Harry’s eyes flick up to his. “So don’t think it’s nothing.”  
  
“Maybe it isn’t nothing, but God,” Harry sighs. “I’m still an idiot. You know, I never said anything to you guys about being, I don’t know, not straight, because I honestly thought it didn’t matter. Jesus, Lou, I don’t even have a word for it. I thought it didn’t make a difference, because I thought everyone was moving on from that stuff.”  
  
“It doesn’t have to make a difference,” Louis says carefully. If that’s what Harry wants, he can pretend not to care about this. He can pretend that this doesn’t tip his world sideways, that it hasn’t already. He can lock this away if he has to, if it takes this look off Harry’s face.  
  
“I wish you were right, Lou, and maybe yesterday I would have thought you were.” He runs a hand through his hair. “But if this is how it is, if my students are going after each other for being something that I am? It matters, whether I want it to or not. And just because I’ve been able to pretend it doesn’t affect me doesn’t mean I get to ignore reality.”  
  
Louis rubs the back of Harry’s neck gently. “Okay. I see what you’re saying. It matters.” Harry lets out a heavy breath. “But I think the fact that you figured that out means you can’t be all that stupid.”  
  
Harry takes a few deep breaths. “God, Lou,” he says, “everyone in the world is an arsehole except you,” and maybe it’s the weight of everything that’s been said, but they both dissolve into giggles.  
  
“Glad to see you’re catching on,” Louis says. The part of him that’s relieved to see Harry looking less likely to fly into a million pieces is just about loud enough to drown out the part of him that’s still freaking the fuck out.  
  
“Okay,” Harry says. “Okay. I can still—I’m going to help him, and do everything I can, and if it’s too much or if I fuck up I can always come cry at you about it. A good plan.” He sits up a little straighter in his seat and seems to have shaken off the worst of what’s weighing him down. He even fixes his hair quickly, so Louis knows he can’t be doing that badly. “All right, I think I’m ready to face the world again.” He looks up at Louis and smiles. “I’d thank you for listening, but I know you’d just tell me that I can always talk to you,” he says, cutting off Louis’ protests, “So I’ll skip ahead in the conversation and thank you for that, instead.”  
  
Louis opens and closes his mouth. His brain is full of fog, and the only coherent thought that is breaking through is sheer amazement that this is a person who exists. Maybe it’s causing Harry pain now, but Louis sends out mental thanks to whatever power allowed him to pass through adolescence without being ruined by reality. He feels like he gets to hang out with a unicorn.  
  
He doesn’t realise he’s been staring until Harry clears his throat. Right, conversation. Louis has partaken once or twice. “Fair enough,” he says. “You’re welcome.” Harry squeezes his shoulder, and Louis is conscious of every square inch of contact. Because he is a bad person.  
  
“I suppose I’ll leave you to your actual work,” Harry says, leaving his seat. He walks over and picks up the bag of footballs.  
  
“Do you have to?” Louis sighs. “Couldn’t you have another crisis? They’re much less boring.” Harry grins at him, and Louis is glad to see his face wiped clean of the pain it had carried before.  
  
“I might be able to come up with something else equally traumatic by lunch tomorrow,” Harry says, hefting the mesh bag over his shoulder.  
  
“See that you do,” Louis says, looking over the top of his glasses. Harry laughs as he leaves, the door closing behind him with a  _snick_.  
  
Louis waits until he’s sure Harry’s a suitable distance away, and then lets out a strangled scream into his empty classroom.

✖

  
  
Louis' windscreen has a crack in it. He was driving through a construction zone once when some piece of machinery sent a pebble flying into the glass, and the impact instantly split a crack from one corner to the other, spiderwebbing out at the ends. It's always there now, since Louis can't really bring himself to spend the money to fix it, and every time he drives anywhere he's half-waiting for the windscreen to finally shatter.  
  
Louis sits at a stoplight and stares at the crack his windscreen and all he can think about is Harry.  
  
It’s been a week since the whole episode with Mike Kendall, and maybe if Louis were a better, less sexually frustrated person it would be a week since Harry came to him in a moment of emotional distress, but instead it’s a week since Harry told him he likes men.  
  
Suddenly all of Louis’ fantasies have become much less abstract and much more immediate. The question is no longer whether or not Harry is interested in men; it’s whether Harry’s interested in Louis, which is a much less comfortable thing to have on his mind. Flirting doesn’t feel playful anymore. Whatever they’ve got their trigger fingers on, it isn’t loaded with blanks.  
  
It’s not just that Louis knows, now. It’s that Harry knows that he knows. They’re both aware that something could happen, that the only thing stopping it is the two of them. It’s a precarious balance, and Louis can never tell anymore where the line between friendly and flirting falls, or if it was ever there, or what anything fucking means. He’s left constantly on edge, wondering if  _this_  is the moment, or  _this_ , or  _this_ , Harry leaning too close to steal a sip of his tea, hair brushing the side of his neck, Harry smiling when he catches Louis staring at his hands, Harry’s hands lingering every time they touch, staying a beat too long on Louis’ wrist or waist or shoulder. Has he always done that? Is Louis reading into things too much? He’s crawling out of his skin, just wondering if the glass will give.  
  
Louis is a lot of things, but he’s never been one to let things lie. He’s not one to sit down and talk about things, either, and that leaves him with physical communication, which is the only thing he really knows how to do anyway. He starts choosing the tightest shirts in his closet, pulling his braces down and letting them hang loose sometimes when Harry’s around. The first time he does it, he means to catalogue Harry’s reaction, but then he gets distracted by the way Harry’s shirt rides up when he stretches and he misses the moment entirely. Harry’s eyes still track him around the room, but no more than usual. Louis doesn’t know what to make of that; he has no idea what their “usual” is or ever was. Eventually he realises that no matter what Harry does, he’ll twist himself into knots over it.  
  
It’s starting to get to him in ways that he really shouldn’t let it. Combined with the stress of classes and trying to put on a damn Shakespeare, it’s making him irritable and short with everyone, even people who are just trying to help him. When his mum calls and asks about his love life in that sly, knowing Mum way of hers, he snaps at her and then feels guilty about it for the rest of the week. When the feedback from the microphones almost leaves them all deaf during a technical rehearsal, he feels like he’s going to pull his hair out.  
  
“Oh, for God’s sake, Niall!” he shouts up at the sound booth in the back of the theatre.  
  
“Working on it!” Niall throws back, and when did Louis start taking this out on  _Niall_  of all people? Niall never did anything to anyone.  
  
“Someone needs to get laid,” Zayn says, sidling up next to him with a bucket of paint.  
  
“That’s rich coming from you,” Louis says.  
  
He spends that night slouched on his sofa, watching old episodes of Cake Boss off his external hard drive and trying not to lament the passage of his youth. He feels restless, like there’s an itch he can’t quite scratch. He watches the man onscreen sculpt impossible shapes out of what is supposedly food, and thinks of Harry. Well, he’s almost always thinking of Harry these days, but he’s specifically thinking about his stories of working in a bakery as a teenager, burning bread and stealing cookie dough. He’s definitely not thinking about present-day Harry wearing nothing but an apron, or covered in chocolate frosting, sweet and sticky under Louis’ tongue. Nope. Not at all.  
  
He pulls out his phone and stares at the lock screen, considering. They’ve always texted each other at random times of the day, little jokes or comments or general miscellany, but Louis could swear even that has changed. It’s not just Harry sending a message from class about the person in the next row who looks like Robbie Williams or Louis texting him when one of his students turns in a four-page essay on the sexual implications of Jack and Algernon’s conversation about muffins in  _The Importance of Being Earnest_. Now it’s late nights with Duchess looking annoyed from the foot of the bed as his phone lights up the room, words on his screen just skirting the edges of what he’d really like to say.  
  
Still watching the sugary roses bloom, he pulls up Harry’s number, just below Zayn’s now on his favorites list.  
  
 _is fondant actually magic? because i do not understand_  
  
Not his best work, but enough to get a conversation going. A few minutes later, he’s rewarded with a response.  
  
 _you should know a baker never reveals his secrets, tommo ;)_  
  
Louis snickers and replies immediately. As he does, thoughts of the secrets Harry has revealed to him steal unbidden to the back of his mind.  
  
 _ur not a baker, ur a mildly competent footy coach. do those reveal their secrets?_  
  
The response is almost instantaneous.  
  
 _more than mildly competent >:(_  
  
The image of Harry frowning at his phone is too good, and Louis can’t help but try to rile him up more. Louis likes taking it a little too far with him, pestering him until he’s not quite sure what Harry will do next.  
  
 _pls. could kick ur arse myself._  
  
For what it’s worth, he actually was pretty decent at football back in the day. Harry seems eager to put him in his place, though, and Louis squirms in his seat when the next text arrives.  
  
 _you want to prove that? put your money where your mouth is?_  
  
Oh, dear. The last thing he needs is to imagine Harry lounging around his flat, in whatever state of undress he almost certainly is in, thinking about Louis and mouths in any capacity whatsoever. He knows none of the actual words in the message are anywhere near R-rated, but his toes still curl. He takes a deep breath and waits a few minutes before responding, staring blindly at Cake Boss and trying to talk himself down. It doesn’t work.  
  
 _i’ll do anything i like with my money, styles. and my mouth. u scared?_  
  
He knows he should be embarrassed, should stop trying to escalate something that he can’t control, but all he can think about is whether or not Harry will catch his breath when he reads what Louis sent. After ten minutes have passed without a response, though, he’s less excited and more annoyed.  
  
 _shaking in my boots. speaking of, do you actually own trainers? :)_  
  
Louis can just see his smug face, looking pleased with himself as he comes up with trash talk. Maybe it’s a little bit attractive, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stand for it. A full fifteen minutes pass before he sends his response, giving Harry a taste of his own medicine. He means to make it twenty, but he breaks before he can get there.  
  
 _dick. let’s do it, then. u and me, footy deathmatch, best man wins._  
  
He expects another long wait, but this time his phone buzzes less than five minutes later. When Louis reads what Harry’s sent, he throws his phone down the couch and grabs a throw pillow, burying his face in it.  
  
 _your arse is mine, tomlinson._  
  
It takes active effort to keep from pressing his hand against the semi he’s currently sporting. Images swim unasked for before his eyes. Harry in a football kit, covered in dirt and sweat. Harry pushing him up against a wall in the boy’s changing room. Harry taking whatever he wants. Louis gropes down the couch and retrieves his phone, peeking out from behind the pillow to tap out as innocuous a response as he can manage.  
  
 _yeah right. u talk big, but we’ll see. when r we doing this?_  
  
If the last message came in minutes, this one comes in seconds, and the idea of Harry staring impatiently at his phone has Louis biting down hard on the pillow.  
  
 _now. come pick me up._  
  
And oh, that sends heat buzzing through Louis’ brain. Harry doesn’t get pushy often, but Louis knows how it looks, all fiery eyes and curled lips. Louis has gotten him like that with a few texts, and he’d be proud of himself if he weren’t in such a fucking state.  
  
 _hazza it’s almost midnight_  
  
The problem isn’t really that it’s late. The problem is that Louis isn’t sure he can deal with being around Harry in person right now if a series of texts about football have him seriously considering turning off Cake Boss to have a wank.  
  
 _backing out now? knew you couldn’t handle me_  
  
That does absolutely nothing to help.  
  
 _wanker. pick you up in twenty_  
  
Louis’ thumb hovers over the send button for a few seconds before he finally shuts his eyes and presses it. This is not a good idea. He knows that. But he can’t back down, not now.  
  
The drive to Harry’s only takes ten minutes, but Louis needs ten extra to change into sport-appropriate clothing and think about dead animals until his hard-on calms down. He maintains an even and sedate pace all the way to Harry’s block of flats. He will not speed. Maybe the prospect of spending time with Harry can get him to agree to sports at an unreasonable hour of the night, and maybe a few innocent texts can get him hard, but he will not hurry. Louis has some dignity.  
  
When he pulls up, Harry is already outside on the pavement, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, beanie pulled low over his ears. He’s carrying a duffle bag, which he slings over his shoulder into the backseat as he slides into the passenger side. Louis is watching everything, the way his shorts sit low on his hips, the way his body twists when he turns back around.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says, reaching to buckle his seatbelt. He grins at Louis, his cheeks red from the nighttime chill, and Louis tries so hard to keep himself under control.  
  
“Hi yourself,” Louis says, dragging his eyes away from the curls escaping from under Harry’s hat. “Ready to be beaten at your own game, literally?”  
  
“Stop stalling and drive, Tomlinson,” Harry says. Louis doesn’t need to be told twice.  
  
He peels away from the pavement just a little too fast, and it’s a quick ride to the school with the two of them trash-talking back and forth and the tension crackling in between. They’re laughing by the time the two of them pile out of Louis’ car, but it still doesn’t feel like there’s enough air to fill Louis’ lungs on the walk across the carpark, in and out of the puddles of light formed by the streetlamps. Soon they fall into silence, their breath making twin clouds in the crisp air, shoulders brushing with every step.  
  
They reach the chain link fence that surrounds the pitch, and Harry reaches into his duffle, pulling out the keys to the gate. The lock opens with a  _clunk_ , impossibly loud, and Louis coughs out a nervous laugh.  
  
Harry turns around at the sound, smirking. “Don’t worry, there’s no one else around.”  
  
Louis knows this, knows that even if there is, Harry’s technically allowed to be here whenever he wants, but it still feels dangerous. Everything feels sort of dangerous lately. Harry opens the gate and motions for Louis to walk through, then ducks under the stands to unlock the hidden breaker box and flip on the lights. The pitch floods with light in front of them, bright green and wide open under the night sky and no place at all to hide.  
  
Louis squints at Harry, walking backwards onto the pitch and feeling words churning up like they always do when he’s nervous. “Worried? Who’s worried? The only one who should be worried is you, Styles, because you’re about to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Tommo.” He pauses and thinks through that sentence again. “Or the feet of the Tommo. Whatever would be more humiliating.”  
  
Harry just laughs and pulls the football out of the duffle. He tosses it into the air and starts bouncing it off his knees, higher and higher each time, following the ball with his eyes. His concentration makes the lines of him long and steady, and the column of his throat is pale and perfect under the pitch’s fluorescent lights.  
  
Louis swallows. He is perhaps in over his head.  
  
Suddenly Harry kicks the ball, catching it mid-air and sending it soaring past Louis. He takes off at a run, blowing by Louis before he’s even registered what’s happening. Louis curses under his breath and goes tearing after him, pleased when he closes the gap quickly.  
  
“Too slow, Harold,” he says, coming in from the side with a slide tackle that knocks the ball from Harry’s feet.  
  
He scrambles upright and starts running the other way down the pitch as fast as he can, the ball dancing ahead of him. He hears the pounding of Harry’s feet behind him a moment too late, unable to stop Harry from colliding with him roughly and stealing the ball away.  
  
Harry comes to a stop a few paces from Louis, breathing heavily through his grin. “Just lulling you into a false sense of security, Lou,” he says, his left foot resting on the football.  
  
Louis may be a bit winded, but he’s aware enough to see the fierce joy in Harry’s eyes, the predatory set of his shoulders. His cheeks and lips are bright pink, either from the cold or from exertion, and Louis can see the fluid way his muscles move under his shirt when he shifts his weight for another attack. Competition looks good on him.  
  
Keeping eye contact, Harry feints right, then left, and Louis banks hard and follows him each time. Finally Harry slips past him with a spin move, his shoulder sliding across Louis’ with a force that feels intentional. Louis isn’t far behind him, and this time he grabs Harry’s shirt, slows him down so he can steal the ball back. Harry isn’t easily outdone, though, and they spend what could be minutes or years upping the ante, swearing and laughing and using dirtier and dirtier tactics to regain possession as they sprint up and down the pitch.  
  
Louis realises somewhere along the line that they never established how exactly one wins whatever game they’re playing, but then Harry makes a break down the pitch and Louis is too busy chasing him to care.  
  
One of them—Louis couldn’t say who—finally goes too far, underestimates his own strength, and the two of them go down in a tangle of limbs at midfield, the ball rolling away slowly before coming to a stop. Louis lunges after it, but Harry is too quick, throwing his body across Louis’ to hold him back.  
  
His hands find Louis’ wrists, holding him down, and Louis has to admit he is well and truly pinned.  
  
Everything has gone so quiet all of a sudden, just the sounds of the two of them trying to catch their breath, Harry sitting astride him now. His beanie has come off somewhere in the melee, and the lights of the pitch above him pick out his curls in silver. Louis has always known, intellectually, that Harry is bigger than him, but it’s different to know it physically, to have Harry’s body cover him and blot out the stars.  
  
He’s imagined them in this position before, but actually feeling Harry there, feeling him with his own actual body and not his imaginary daydream body, is a little too much. Half of him is knotted up in his nerve endings, incapable of rational thought, and half of him is miles away, clinically analyzing everything that’s happening from somewhere in space. Both halves are about thirty seconds from catastrophic failure, and that could have consequences that Louis isn’t prepared to deal with.  
  
Louis meets Harry’s eyes, and Harry’s mouth slices open in a grin that leaves Louis as winded as any tackle.  
  
“Gotcha,” Harry says. “Looks like I win.” He’s frozen still, though, and while his smile is sure, there’s a question in his eyes that Louis has no interest in answering, or doesn’t know how. He thinks instead of the grass prickling against the back of his neck, narrows his focus to that single sensation.  
  
“Is that how this works, then,” Louis says softly. He’s stalling, holding off the moment he can feel humming toward them. Harry huffs a small laugh that turns to fog in the cold air. Louis had forgotten the temperature, can’t quite take it seriously when he can feel the heat of Harry down to his bones. Even that has him reeling, the thought that the warmth seeping into him was part of Harry half a minute ago.  
  
“You tell me,” Harry says quietly. Louis takes a deep breath, feeling panic thread its way through him, crackling along every nerve. He searches for a response, something clever and witty that will get him out of this without having to risk anything, but when he reaches for a rejoinder he finds his brain is full of static. His throat feels tighter and tighter, and when he lets out a breath a small whine comes with it. Harry’s hands loosen on his wrists, distracted, and if Louis is honest with himself, what happens next is pure fight or flight.  
  
He surges upwards, taking advantage of Harry’s moment of inattention, and bowls them both over. Leaving Harry flat on his back, Louis runs for the football, snatching it up with his hands. He’s got no plan, no strategy besides  _move move keep moving_ , but when he looks back Harry is upright and running after him, thank God.  
  
Louis runs the length of the half and carries the football between the goalposts. When he turns, football held overhead, Harry is slowing to a stop, a tired smile on his face and his beanie in his hand.  
  
“You know, that’s not actually how the game is played,” Harry says wearily, tugging his hat back onto his head.  
  
“Expecting me to play by your rules was your first mistake, young Harry,” Louis says, tossing him the football.  
  
Harry fixes him with a considering look. “Yeah, I guess it was,” he says, cocking his head to one side. Then he drops the football, and before Louis has time to react, Harry’s grabbed him around the legs and heaved him over his shoulder into a fireman’s carry, ignoring Louis’ squawks of alarm and protest.  
  
Louis contemplates his upside-down view of Harry’s arm. He’d like it better right-side up, and with his crotch not pressed dangerously against the muscle and bone of Harry’s shoulder. It’s a very nice arm, admittedly, but even so.  
  
“Harry,” he says, his voice deceptively calm. “What the shit are you doing?”  
  
“If you can make up rules, so can I,” Harry says, striding across the pitch. He doesn’t even sound like he’s making much of an effort, the bastard, and Louis needs to stop feeling things about how easy it is for Harry to physically throw him around or else he’s going to find himself in a very compromising situation soon. “My rule says that the loser has to carry the winner off the field.” His grip on Louis’ thigh tightens, and it’s all Louis can do not to squirm against it.  
  
“Good rule,” he says into Harry’s arm. “Next time can you give the winner a bit of warning?”  
  
“Next time the winner will be me,” Harry says, and Louis can hear the smile in his voice even if he can’t see it. “So I’ll be sure to let myself know.”  
  
“Smartarse,” Louis grumbles. He glares down at the grass, which really isn’t fair. The grass never made him have inconvenient sexual urges. At least not directly.  
  
Then the world tilts and he’s being set down, right-side up, on the edge of the pitch. Harry picks up his duffle bag and shuts the lights back off before opening the gate and ushering Louis through with a bow.  
  
Louis smiles, even if he can’t quite meet Harry’s eyes. “I could get used to this,” he says, waiting for Harry to catch up. Harry just laughs.  
  
They cross the carpark in silence again, and Louis can’t quite tell what kind of silence it is. They reach his car, and it’s only when Harry’s bag hits his backseat with a  _thwap_  that Louis realises it’s empty.  
  
“Your football,” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. We can—“  
  
“I’ll get it on Monday,” Harry says with a shrug. He slides into the passenger seat and pulls the door closed.  
  
The drive back to Harry’s is almost as quick as the drive to the school, and when Louis pulls up to his block of flats he can’t decide if he wants Harry out of his car as fast as possible or if he wants to keep driving until his petrol runs out so Harry can’t ever leave.  
  
Harry unbuckles his seatbelt and reaches into the backseat for his bag. Then he turns to Louis, holding out his hand. Unsure, Louis clasps it in his own.  
  
“Good game,” Harry says, the corner of his mouth quirked upwards, and then he slips out of the car, leaving Louis with a phantom warmth in his hand and a stupid expression on his face. Both stay in place the entire drive back to Louis’ apartment, Louis doing his best to ignore the insistent pulsing in his groin.  
  
He feels like he’s suffocating in the small space of his car, overwhelmed by sense memory. Harry’s weight pressing him into the ground. Harry’s lip caught between his teeth in concentration. Harry’s voice rumbling low in his chest. This whole thing has been throwing sparks at the dry kindling of his mad, terrible wanting, and now a fire’s been lit under his skin, smoldering between his nerve endings and making him sweat in his seat.  
  
When he finally makes it back to his apartment, he pauses only long enough to throw the deadbolt before staggering into his bedroom. He doesn’t even make it onto the bed, falling on his knees just inside the door instead. He braces against the bed with his forearm, burying his face against the duvet, and pulls his sweatpants down just far enough to take himself in hand. He groans at the first touch, desperate for it, for anything.  
  
He doesn’t waste any time, taking tight, fast pulls, and fuck, it almost hurts to do it dry, but if he doesn’t get some sort of release in the next two minutes he’s going to die. Breathing shallowly, he lets the leftover pieces of the night take over. He thinks of Harry above him, and the smell of grass, and how it would feel to get fucked with that grass against his skin and that face looking down at him. He imagines Harry taking him apart on the midfield line, under the lights, out in the open. He remembers Harry’s hands tight on his wrists, and shudders wrack his entire body. One, two, three more strokes, and he’s done, coming into his own hand with a broken sound.  
  
He sits there he doesn’t know how long, coming down less from his orgasm than from the entire night. God. He is a fucking wreck, and it’s only getting worse. He can only imagine what Harry would think if he saw him like this, alone on his bedroom floor with his prick out and a hand full of come. What is wrong with him? He hasn’t been like this over anyone since he was sixteen years old and terrified and helpless to stop himself from thinking of the fit boy from biology class every time he got himself off. This has gotten completely out of control.  
  
Louis finally musters the energy to go clean himself up, deciding that staying on the floor until he withers into dust under the weight of his sad, sad state of affairs is not actually the way he wants to die. When he raises his head, though, eyes fall on his pillow. There sits Duchess, grooming one paw imperiously and staring at him with what can only be disdain.   
  
He drops his face back onto the bed with a defeated whimper.

 

 

**Chapter 5.**

Louis is saved from having to try to sort out his pathetic life by the fact that  _Much Ado_  goes into its last two weeks before opening night. With interminable rehearsals every evening and dozens of errands to run during his free periods, he only sees Harry for short snippets of time. He’s had to give up lunchtime for the sake of putting the finishing touches on the set and rounding up props, so even that is gone. Most of his interactions with Harry lately are down to a few unanswered text messages in his inbox and brushing by Harry on his way out the door with a strangled apology thrown back over his shoulder.  
  
Thankfully, this means he is spared from having to look Harry in the eyes for any extended period of time, because he might actually have a stroke if that happened. He’s tuned up so tightly right now that he can hardly even stand the thought of Harry on top of everything else, much less having to see him right in front of his face. The last damn thing he needs right now is to be forced to deal with the person who’s keeping him up at night, fists in the bedclothes and aching for hands on his skin. High stress plus excruciating sexual frustration does not a winning combination make.  
  
It seems like Harry’s picked up on the fact that his behavior is more than just a mad dash to get everything ready in time for the first performance. Even running into him by the vending machines is still enough for him to figure out that Harry isn’t quite touching him as much as he normally does, isn’t quite smiling at him the same way. He feels guilty for pushing Harry away, because beyond his endless idiotic wanting, Harry is one of his closest friends, but he just can’t cope with everything at once.  
  
He’ll figure it out later when he isn’t neck-deep in Shakespeare, trying to drag a couple dozen teenagers through their final few rehearsals.  
  
“Stop, stop,” Louis yells from his seat in the audience. The two actors onstage turn to look at him, lines halfway out of their mouths, as Louis stands and walks toward the stage. “It’s not worth running this scene if you two aren’t off-book. And you aren’t.” Two days before opening night, and his leads aren’t off-book. Jesus. “Go run lines outside in the hallway.” They walk offstage, his female lead looking peevish.  
  
“Marjorie, if you don’t have that soliloquy memorized tomorrow, I’ll, I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do, but none of us will like it.” Louis shouts after her. He rubs his hands over his face and tries not to hyperventilate.  
  
“You look like you could use this,” someone says behind him, and oh God please no.  
  
Louis turns and is abruptly confronted with the sight of Harry Styles in his theatre, because the universe is trying to send him into a psychotic break.  
  
“What are you—” Louis starts, but then looks down to see the cardboard cup in Harry’s hands.  
  
“Yorkshire tea, no sugar,” Harry says, pushing it into his hands. Louis accepts it wordlessly. “Footy practice was cancelled, it’s raining. What do you need?”  
  
It’s too much, Harry standing there asking to be whatever Louis needs except for the one thing he needs most, and Louis stares into the tea and tries to pick one emotion to feel. Exasperation seems like the least terrifying choice, considering his options. “Go keep an eye on the kids who are setting up the lights, try to make sure they don’t kill themselves.” He holds back from thanking Harry, rude as it is, because if he starts letting himself react to things Harry does he isn’t going to make it through the night alive.  
  
Harry nods once and walks toward the back of the theatre, and Louis takes a deep breath and turns back to see his cast milling around aimlessly. “You,” he says, picking out two of the boys. “Run your Act III scene again. With the blocking.” They groan and Louis is going to snap. “You’ll thank me when you don’t trip in front of hundreds of people. Run it.”  
  
“What about the rest of us?” says one of the girls playing a bit part.  
  
Louis rubs his temples. “Go and make sure all your costumes are finished and fit. Practice costume changes. Run your lines. Know that if I catch you slacking off I will mount your head on my wall as a trophy.” They scatter, and he turns back to the two boys. “Why aren’t you running your scene? Go!”  
  
He watches them critically, stepping in every once in a while to point out where they’ve messed up their blocking or dropped a line. It seems like only a few minutes have passed, but suddenly he feels a light touch on his shoulder. He turns, and of course it’s Harry, with a concerned look on his face that makes Louis want to cry.  
  
“All the lights are ready,” he says. “I’d run through the cues to make sure everything’s hooked up right, but I wanted to check with you first since you’re using the stage.”  
  
Louis looks at his watch and fuck,  _fuck_ , he’s going to have to let the kids go soon.  
  
“Give me a minute,” he says to Harry, who just nods again like he’s got the patience of a fucking saint. Louis wants to hit him, wants to say something cruel just to get a reaction, because he does not have the emotional resources to deal with Harry being a good person right now.  
  
Instead he turns back to the stage, cups his hands, and yells, “Everyone out here!” It takes a few seconds, but soon everyone is assembled, actors and crew alike, looking at him expectantly. “You’ve all put in good work tonight,” he says. “We’re going to need you to put in a lot more over the next two days. I know I’m driving you hard, and I know you’ve all got the end of term to deal with, but we’re all going to have to push ourselves to get this show off the ground in time. Before you leave tonight, please, for the love of God, make sure that everything is cleaned up. If you’re an actor, make sure you know where your costumes are. Crew, make sure the props are stored in some way that makes sense. If I have to clean up after any of you I will not be pleased.” He pauses, making sure they’re appropriately terrified. “Then you can go home.”  
  
They give a ragged cheer and disperse. Louis drops into one of the theatre seats and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying not to think about how much there is left to do. He looks up and sees Harry helping one of the members of the crew push the prop stairs off to the side of the stage, the muscles of his back visible through his t-shirt, and Louis really can’t afford to process that.  
  
He stands up and heads back to the sound booth, because someone really does need to check the lighting cues. As he runs through them, he can’t help but watch what’s happening onstage. Harry walking stage right, arms laden with props. Harry hugging a cast member who looks like she’s about to cry. Harry picking up a table, arms flexing. Somehow when it’s happening on the stage it’s harder to ignore, and Louis stands in the booth, pressing buttons, wishing Harry were a worse person.  
  
If he were worse, if he weren’t so genuinely fucking pleasant to be around, Louis could just fuck him and get it over with. He could just get him, it, this, whatever it is, out of his system and never see him again and go on with his life. Sure, when Louis gets involved with someone it usually all goes to hell immediately, but if Harry could just be a shittier person that wouldn’t matter. Half of the men Louis has ever slept with probably hate his guts, and Louis couldn’t give less of a shit.  
  
Except Harry isn’t a shittier person: he’s alone onstage folding costumes for Louis’ play. Looking at him there under the spotlight, Louis can’t lie to himself. If Harry ever hated him, he would be lost. And right now, it makes Louis fucking angry.  
  
He walks out of the sound booth, slamming the door, and stalks down the aisle of the theatre. Harry and he are the last ones left, it looks like, which is good, because if Louis has to interact with one more person he’s going to tear out his hair. He climbs the stairs without a word.  
  
“Hey, I folded these but I don’t know where—” Harry starts, but Louis has already grabbed the costumes from him. “Okay. I guess you know where they go,” Harry says, a note of worry in his voice. It’s probably in his face, too, but Louis will be damned if he looks at him.  
  
He walks stage right with the costumes, pulse roaring in his ears. He wants Harry gone, needs him out of his space before he loses it. “I don’t want you to help,” he says bitingly, and God, he knows already it was a bad idea. There’s a moment of silence, and Louis turns to look at Harry, to see what he’s done.  
  
“Louis,” Harry says carefully, holding up both hands, “what’s going on?”  
  
“I’m fucking exhausted, that’s what!” Louis snaps. “I’m tired, and I’ve got a play to put on in two days, and there are forty-five papers on my desk that still need to be marked, and I’ve got to give final exams tomorrow, and there’s no fucking time for anything, and my lead missed two weeks of rehearsals because he had pneumonia and he’s still missing cues, and I had to change all the blocking for half of the scenes to hide Rupert Baker’s bloody broken leg, and my rent’s overdue, and I haven’t had time to do laundry in two weeks, and then there’s you walking around with your  _face_  and your  _shoulders_  and your  _football shorts_ and your being a  _good fucking person_ , and it’s  _distracting_ , and I haven’t got the fucking,  _fucking time_.”  
  
The words register to his own ears before he’s even aware of them leaving his mouth, and Louis freezes, mouth hanging open, arms still wrapped around the bundle of costumes.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Harry’s staring at him from across the stage. Louis can see what he’s said settle in behind his eyes and, shit,  _shit_ , bleeding buggering  _shit_  and a thousand screaming nuns.  
  
“I... distract you?” Harry says slowly.  
  
“I—what I mean to say—”  
  
“I  _distract_  you,” Harry says again, and this time it spreads his mouth out into a smile.  
  
“Er,” Louis says.  
  
Louis has appreciated Harry’s athleticism on more than one occasion, but it’s still impressive that he manages to vault over a prop table and close the distance between them in a few swift movements, suddenly in Louis’ space, tugging the mounds of fabric out of his arms. He sets them down on the floor and Louis doesn’t know what’s happening, doesn’t know anything except that Harry is suddenly so close, close enough that Louis can smell his shampoo and it smells like one of those girly kinds, like strawberries and rose petals or something and Harry  _would_  use girls’ shampoo because who even is he, and Louis is panicking, Louis is definitely, definitely panicking.  
  
“Did you mean that?” Harry asks him, and the corners of his mouth are still curled up in a smile but there’s no trace of a joke in the way that he says it.  
  
“Um.” Every part of his body is screaming at him to lie, lie, lie, but what he says is, “I... Yes. I—Yeah, I did.”  
  
And this is where Louis gets confirmation that Harry is not a sane person, because the way he looks at Louis makes no sense. Louis is the human equivalent of a bus speeding off of a cliff, into a gorge, on fire, and Harry is looking at him like he’s Christmas come early, which makes Harry either very stupid or very psychopathic.  
  
Harry’s hands ghost up Louis’ arms, not quite touching, and Louis can’t help but shiver at the phantom contact. Harry’s expression turns soft and marveling, and Louis would probably be more embarrassed if every emotion he has weren’t otherwise occupied.  
  
Harry reaches up and carefully, carefully slides Louis’ glasses off his face, then carefully, carefully folds them and slips them into Louis’ shirt pocket. Louis hands hang uselessly at his sides, and his ears are full of the sound of his own hitching breaths. He’s never felt so obvious in his life.  
  
Harry leans in, impossibly closer, and Louis doesn’t quite understand how they aren’t touching, because even the air around him feels like Harry, even the stage beneath his feet. Harry reaches a hand towards his face, and Louis thinks  _finally_ , but his hand hovers and clenches into a fist.  
  
“Louis,” Harry says, “don’t make me fly blind, here,” and oh, that is enough.  
  
“You complete shit,” Louis lets out in a rush, “I am about to fucking die waiting on you and you are just  _mmmph_ —”  
  
And there it is,  _there_ , like the explosion at the end of a mile-long fuse. There was a gap and now there isn’t, Harry’s mouth on Louis’ and his hands on his face. Louis can’t help but gasp, his hands coming up to clutch at the crooks of Harry’s elbows, his mind one big record scratch, stuck on the thought  _Harry kissed me he kissed me he kissed me_  and Christ, if he doesn’t pull himself together in the next half-second he’s going to miss it.  
  
Harry kisses with intent, with focus, with singular purpose. Harry kisses Louis like it’s premeditated, like he’s planned every slick drag of his lips against Louis’. Louis doesn’t even try to keep up, still not quite able to believe what’s happening, much less contribute to it. Harry’s hands drop to his shoulders and the two of them are moving, Harry pushing Louis up against the side of the prop stairs. They’re pressed together, knees to ribcage, and Louis is overwhelmed.  
  
Harry pulls back, breathing heavily, one arm braced against the stairs by Louis’ head. He searches Louis’ face with wild eyes, pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed.  
  
“Lou,” he says, voice rough, and Louis isn’t sure what he’s looking for but he’s glad he asked. Louis breathes once, twice, and lifts a hand to Harry’s face. He drags his thumb across Harry’s bottom lip, and the way Harry’s eyes fall closed makes something in him give way.  
  
And now he’s the one moving, crowding into Harry’s space and kissing him frantically, threading his fingers through Harry’s hair. Harry’s hands are around his waist and his tongue is in his mouth and Louis is sure he had plans to do other things with his life but he can’t for the life of him remember why he’d want to do anything but this.  
  
Harry’s moving, and at first Louis thinks it’s just the momentum of his own body carrying them backwards, but then Harry’s grabbing his braces and blindly dragging him towards the mess of prop furniture in the middle of the stage. Louis feels Harry run into something, and then they’re tipping over, Harry pulling Louis down with him. There’s deja-vu in that half-moment of weightlessness, but then Louis lands heavily on top of Harry and finds he has other things to think about.  
  
They’re on a ratty prop sofa at center stage. Harry slides up to make more room, Louis crawling after him. One of Harry’s hands flattens out over the small of Louis’ back, pulling their bodies flush together, before flipping the two of them over in a single movement so slick that Louis is almost as impressed as he is turned on.  
  
“You’re gonna have to teach me that move one day, Styles,” he says, sliding his fingers back into the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck.  
  
Harry is grinning like a fool. “Is this okay?” he asks, nodding down at their position.  
  
“Yes, Jesus,” Louis says, dragging Harry’s head back down into a kiss. “How fragile do you think I am,” he mumbles against Harry’s mouth. Harry responds by sucking hard on Louis’ bottom lip. Louis can’t help the whimper that escapes him, so, okay. Point taken.  
  
He’ll be damned if he lets that go unanswered, though, especially not when he can taste the smirk on Harry’s lips. Louis arches his back and rolls his hips up into Harry’s, pressing up into his solid weight. Harry’s mouth falls open in a silent moan, letting Louis’ tongue steal inside, but God, Louis wants more, wants to make Harry shake apart. He lets his legs fall open, framing Harry’s thighs, and presses up into him again, sliding his hands up under his shirt.  
  
Harry does groan now, pulling away from the kiss. “God, Lou,” he murmurs, his head falling into the curve of Louis’ neck. He presses back this time, rolling his hips in slow, filthy circles against Louis’ as his teeth scrape his throat. Louis draws a hissing breath and can’t help but drag his nails down Harry’s back, clinging on for dear life.  
  
Louis is. Louis is probably going to die.  
  
Harry sits back a little, and Louis leans up instinctively to follow him before realising that Harry’s sliding his braces off his shoulders.  
  
“What’re you doing?” he asks inanely.  
  
Harry’s hands are back at his waist, tugging his shirttails out of his trousers. “If I don’t put my hands on you soon I’m going to lose my mind,” he says matter-of-factly. “All of you.”  
  
 _Fuck_ , Louis thinks, trying to assess the situation rationally. “Fuck,” he says, grabbing hold of Harry’s hands. “Harry, I can’t fuck you on, on the sofa we’re using in the show. That’s, God, that’s definitely unethical.”  
  
Harry seems unperturbed, moving to kiss the other side of Louis’ neck. “Whose ethics are we talking about?” he says lightly. “My ethics are fine with this.” He bites down on Louis’ collarbone. “I find you being clothed unethical.”  
  
“Shit, Jesus, I am going to murder you,” Louis says, pushing Harry’s head away. Harry just grins at him, his mouth red and obscene. “Can you, Christ, can you hold that thought for, like, however long it takes to get to my flat?” Harry rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, but slides back down the sofa enough that Louis can stand on wobbling legs.  
  
“Keys,” Louis says, patting down his pockets. “Keys, fucking keys, my entire kingdom for my fucking— _shit_.”  
  
“I’ve got your kingdom right here, babe,” Harry snickers, already crowding up behind him, breath hot under his shirt collar, and can he _not,_ for  _three seconds,_  Christ on crutches.  
  
“You are,” Louis says, feeling Harry smile against the back of his neck, “the least helpful human I have ever met. Also, my keys are in my classroom, because of course they are, so.”  
  
“So let’s go get them,” Harry says. He finally peels off and jumps ahead of Louis, leading the way out the side door of the theatre and into the hallway. Louis swears under his breath and takes off after him.  
  
It’s, it’s... surreal, actually. Unbelievable. He barely has his wits about him enough to pray that nobody is around this late to see him like this, shirt halfway untucked in the front, braces tugged loose on one side, mouth raw and red from Harry’s teeth and the faint stubble on his jaw. He looks for all the world like a horny teenager, and he can’t remember the last time he let anyone get him like this, and it hits him all of the sudden that it’s  _Harry_  that’s done this to him. Impossible Harry with his ridiculous curls and his wide open smiles and his heart that fills up rooms and rooms and rooms, Harry who pulled him out of a cardboard box and pinned him down on the football pitch and played Whitesnake for Zayn at a carwash, Harry who he’s been trying not to fall for for  _months_  because, obviously, in what world do things like this actually happen to Louis Tomlinson?  
  
And the thing is, Harry  _wants_  him. Not just accepts what Louis wants from him but wants him right back, hungry and restless, pulling Louis down the hall by his hand, hair and eyes wild with it. Louis has never met anyone in his life as sure of himself and what he wants as Harry is, and what Harry wants, apparently, is  _him_.  
  
Louis skids to a stop because he feels like he’s about to have an aneurysm, and he pulls on Harry’s arm to turn him around.  
  
“Wait,” Louis says, because he has to know, “the whole time?”  
  
“Yes, the whole time,” Harry tells him impatiently, like it costs him nothing, already picking his pace back up again. “Now can we  _please_  keep moving?”  
  
And, well, Louis can’t argue with that, because he’s beaming now and he’s pretty sure he’ll combust on the spot if he can’t have Harry’s mouth on him again in the next thirty seconds, so it’s just as well that they’re stumbling up to his classroom. It’s the last room with its lights still on, and Louis actually manages to let go of Harry’s hand for a few seconds to dart inside. He’s at his desk, hand already extended for the keys resting there, when he hears the door snap shut and lock behind him.  
  
He turns around, and Harry’s already right behind him, backing him into the side of his desk.  
  
“I can’t make it back to your flat,” Harry says. “I can’t fucking wait any more. Please, just—”  
  
Harry cuts himself off with a kiss pressed hard and bruising against Louis’ mouth, and this is probably a bad idea but Harry’s still kissing him and this is  _happening_  and there’s not a single part of Louis that wants it to stop. Louis wraps his fist around the front of Harry’s shirt and kisses him back just as hard and hopes it’s enough to tell him yes, yes, God,  _please_.  
  
This time around, it’s Louis that reaches for the waistband of Harry’s shorts first, and Harry that stops his hands.  
  
Their lips break apart, and there’s a breathless, frozen moment with Harry’s hands tangled up in his, their mouths just barely brushing, and he knows Harry’s asking permission again.  
  
“Anything,” Louis says. He’s terrified of the size of that word. He doesn’t take it back.  
  
Harry, the son of a bitch, actually winks. And then he drops to his knees.  
  
“Holy God,” Louis says. He’s already hard, almost embarrassingly so and has been since Harry hips first fell in line with his, and Harry’s not mucking about anymore. He makes fast work of Louis’ braces, and Louis’ breathing shudders to a halt as Harry yanks his trousers open and shoves them down just far enough. The trunks Louis has got on are a nightmarish red polka dot number, the last clean pair he had left. Maybe he’ll find the time to feel humiliated about it later, but at the moment Harry is smiling wickedly up at him from under thick eyelashes and slipping his fingers under the waistband and snapping the elastic gently against his hip and Louis has never been farther from caring about anything in his entire life.  
  
It’s been so long. So many months of wanting, of telling himself not to want, of imagining what it would be like and seeing ghosts of Harry behind his eyelids as he sweated into his own sheets, and none of it prepared him for this.  
  
His hands scramble behind him for something to hold onto because Harry’s tugging him out of his underwear and Louis feels like he’s going to collapse or die or go flying off the surface of the earth if he can’t get a grip on something immediately. One of his hands closes on the stack of unmarked papers on his desk, the other on some hideous novelty stapler he got for last year’s faculty Secret Santa, and, God, hysterical laughter comes bubbling up his throat because  _Harry_  is  _going down on him against his desk_ , and—  
  
Then Harry licks his lips and takes him all the way down in one smooth, wet motion and Louis is not laughing anymore.  
  
The shock of it sings through Louis’ entire body, and his torso arches forward, curved around Harry like a sapling in a hurricane. He’s not sure what he was expecting. He has no real idea of how much experience Harry has with men, and for all Harry’s confidence, he thought he’d have to work up to it, but no, no, Harry’s nose is brushing against his stomach and it’s all Louis can do to swallow the insane, desperate noise that pulls out of his chest.  
  
He looks down and realises that his hand is on the back of Harry’s neck, and he almost apologizes before he sees the laughter in Harry’s eyes. Then Harry does something obscene and incredible with his tongue and  _fuck_ , Louis’ never seen anyone give a smug blowjob before, but if anyone could it would be Harry Styles.  
  
Harry picks up rhythm, long slow pulls, and Louis has to close his eyes, because the way it feels combined with the sight of Harry’s lips dragging down him is too much. He feels Harry’s hands slide up the back of his legs, supporting him, and thank God for that because his knees are about to give out. Harry pulls almost all the way off and sucks hard, and Louis can’t help the tremor that goes through him or the choked noise he makes, and Christ, he can feel Harry respond, can feel his hum of approval, and this is going to be over almost before it begins.  
  
Louis forces his eyes open, because if he doesn’t get a visual memory of this he’ll probably convince himself it was a dream. Harry’s eyes are closed, and Louis’ll be damned if he doesn’t give head like he kisses, like it’s the only thing he’s ever planned on doing. Louis can’t keep from sliding his hand up into Harry’s hair, tugging gently at the slightly sweaty curls. Harry’s eyes flick up to meet his, and it’s not laughter that Louis sees there now, that has him holding white-knuckled to the desk.  
  
Harry slides one hand away from Louis’ thigh and fuck,  _fuck_ , slips it into his own shorts, and Louis wants to see him so badly but can’t make himself move. He settles for just watching the way the muscles in Harry’s arms work, the way they move under his skin as he touches himself.  
  
Harry seems almost as overwhelmed as Louis feels, pulling off briefly and breathing heavily. “Fuck,” he says, his voice wrecked and his mouth slick, before sliding his lips back over Louis eagerly. Louis would agree, but the feeling of Harry’s mouth around him and the thought that it’s getting Harry off has torn his mind entirely in half.  
  
Harry pulls off again, his hand working frantically in his shorts. He leans his forehead against Louis’ hip, Louis’ fingers carding helplessly through his hair. “Fuck, Lou,” he says, pressing a kiss to the skin there, “I’ve wanted—fuck, I can’t believe I get to do this.” His breath is coming fast now, his fingers digging into the back of Louis’ thigh. “I’m so close,” he says roughly, before taking Louis back down all the way.  
  
His words register in Louis’ brain about the same time Louis feels himself hit the back of Harry’s throat, and that is the end of that. Louis has barely enough time to try to warn Harry, pulling on his hair, but Harry doesn’t move, swallowing around Louis as he comes. He pulls off a moment too early, letting a little spill over his lips, and even in his post-orgasmic haze Louis can’t keep from dragging his fingers over the mess on Harry’s mouth, has to touch him to make sure this is real. Harry sucks two of Louis’ fingers into his mouth, hard, and looks up at him unblinkingly.  
  
“Haz,” Louis says weakly, unable to look away.  
  
He can’t actually see Harry come, but he feels Harry bite down hard on his fingers before his mouth goes completely slack, shuddering through it with a groan.  
  
Louis’ fingers slip out and he wants hold Harry while he comes down, wants to kiss him undone again and again, wants so many huge, aching things in that moment that it should scare the hell out of him. He wants Harry to live the rest of his life spread out in his bed if it means he can see that look on his face every day and know he’s the one that put it there. He wants so many things all at once that he feels a little bit like he’s been hit by a bus.  
  
Harry’s grip loosens and Louis’ knees finally do give out this time, dropping him heavily to the floor. He lands halfway on top of Harry and knocks him off balance until the two of them are a tangle of limbs pressed up against the side of Louis’ desk, breathing hard and still riding it all out.  
  
They’re silent for a few moments, just Harry’s curls tickling the side of his face because his head is buried in Louis’ chest, right over the place where his heart can’t seem to even back out. And then, and then—Harry  _laughs_ , and that’s it, Louis is done, he’s bent over Harry’s body with laughter, both of them seizing up with it like it’s the funniest damn thing that’s ever happened to them. And for Louis it kind of is, really. Last night he was torrenting Dance Moms and pouring himself a glass of wine to get him through writing up two different final exams while also going over the lighting cues and trying not to think about the way Harry’s collarbones look in a deep v-neck.  
  
Today... well.  
  
“Jesus bloody fucking Christ,” Louis says finally, still laughing a little and stumbling over the consonants. Perhaps not his most eloquent moment, but under the circumstances, he thinks he deserves some credit for managing actual words at all.  
  
“Is that his full name, then?” Harry says, because he is a smug son of a bitch. Louis opens his eyes to tell him as much, but the look on Harry’s face makes all the air in his lungs leave him. He doesn’t look smug, just spent and dirty and beautiful and absolutely dazed with happiness.  _Louis did that._  
  
Before he even thinks about it, Louis grabs Harry’s idiot face in both hands and kisses him, just as natural as you please. It’s a short kiss because neither of them can stop smiling long enough but it’s all they need right now, a little stitch to hold this moment in place.  
  
“So,” Harry says, beaming, “I sort of fancy you.”  
  
Louis rolls his eyes. “I think I’ve just made it abundantly clear that I fancy you too, you wanker.”  
  
Harry swats at his shoulder and laughs again and Louis, God, Louis is trying so hard to keep pace with him, to keep this easy and simple. Harry is smiling like this is the easiest decision he’s ever made, and Louis is smiling too, but taking deep breaths, trying to keep things in perspective. He’s had blowjobs before, several of which were even quite memorable. And sure, maybe this one makes the rest a little difficult to recall, and maybe he never laughed like a teenager on top of any of the others, but... shit. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, right? Shit.  
  
Louis tries to relax, to stay in this impossible moment, but he can’t stop his brain from racing ahead. Harry fancies him, and said so like he was giving it away, but Louis isn’t sure  _fancy_  is really the word for what he’s feeling, and fuck. He can’t even remember the last time he admitted that he fancied someone, and now it suddenly doesn’t even feel like enough. Deep breaths, he focuses on deep breaths, feeling his rib cage expand against Harry’s solid weight.  
  
“What now?” Harry murmurs, picking his head up off Louis’ chest. He looks Louis right in the eye. There’s no expectation in his face, but Louis knows what he’s really asking, can feel all that’s behind the question even if there’s no urgency in his voice. He thinks of everything he feels coiled tensely in his chest, and knows that now is the moment to let it out or hold his peace.  
  
The moment slows and stretches. Louis thinks _now I trick you into staying with me_ , thinks  _if you get up I’ll kill you_ , thinks  _I can’t remember a time I wasn’t waiting for you_.  
  
“Still want to come back to my flat?” is what he says. Harry blinks and then nods, half-smiling, and Louis pushes his guilt to the back of his brain.  
  
Harry reaches up over him, bracing his hand on the desk behind Louis’ head and leaning in close enough that his breath is hot on Louis’ ear and Louis can almost feel the way his mouth curls up on one side.  
  
“You have no idea,” Harry says, and usually Harry mumbles, but this time he deliberately pronounces every sound so that Louis won’t miss a word, “the things I want to do to you.”  
  
He catches Louis’ earlobe between his tongue and his teeth for half a second and then he’s gone, standing up and dusting himself off, holding Louis’ keys in his hand, grinning like the hellspawn that he obviously is because how the fuck is Louis supposed to deal with  _that_?  
  
Louis scrambles upright and pulls up his trousers, fingers shaking. He moves to start fixing his braces, but Harry lets out a loud sigh, bouncing on the balls of his feet.  
  
“Christ, Tomlinson, you think you could hurry up? These shorts aren’t exactly comfortable anymore,” Harry says, shifting his weight back and forth.  
  
Louis snorts, tucking in his shirt. “It’s not my fault you came in your pants.”  
  
Harry arches an eyebrow. “Debatable.” He tosses Louis his keys. “Pick up the pace, Lou, If your dick recovers while we’re still in the car then you’re getting roadhead, and I don’t want to die tonight.”  
  
Louis breaks every single speed limit on the way home.

 

 

**Chapter 6.**

“I think I’m dead,” Louis says. His voice is hoarse and tired for more reasons than one. He’s not sore yet, but he’s fairly certain that once it sets in he will never not be for the rest of his life. “I think you’ve killed me.”  
  
“I haven’t killed you,” Harry says, and Louis can hear the smile in his voice without having to see it. He’s sauntering around the wreckage of the kitchen in all his naked glory, thoroughly sated agent of chaos that he is, Louis and Louis’ apartment equally destroyed around him. There are pants on the bookshelf. Actual pants. This is a thing that is happening in Louis’ life. This is a thing that Harry Styles did to him.  
  
From where Louis is sprawled on the sofa, he’s got a clear view through his bedroom door. The mattress is drooping halfway off the frame on one side looking utterly defeated, and the duvet has been slung over the chair in the corner. There’s an empty bottle of wine wedged under the nightstand and the lamp is dangling by its cord over the side (he remembers that one, his mouth around Harry and one of Harry’s elbows jerking involuntarily to the side as he arched up into it). The papers he’d been keeping on the kitchen counter are everywhere. He can vaguely recall letting out a strangled noise and sweeping them all onto the floor with one hand and bending Harry over the tiles, and how Harry had loved it, had loved Louis taking control.  
  
It’s 5 a.m. now. Louis has a bite mark on his hip. Louis has a bruise forming on his ribs. Louis may never leave this sofa again.  
  
“I have to collect term papers today,” Louis says, staring at the ceiling. The sex haze is starting to settle around him, and the anxiety is creeping back in. “I have to put on a play on Friday.”  
  
“You can do it,” Harry says easily. Louis can hear the sound of him dislodging a skillet from the drawer under the stove that he never opens.  
  
“I don’t think I can, though,” Louis says. “I don’t even think I can move, actually.”  
  
Harry doesn’t answer at first, busy pulling the carton of eggs out of the fridge and a bowl from the cabinet. Of course Louis would become involved with the only person in the world capable of making omelets after an all night sex parade.  
  
But then suddenly there’s Harry’s face hanging upside down over the back of the couch, smiling crookedly at him, curls falling everywhere. He’d look almost angelic if it weren’t for the fact that he’s completely starkers and Louis can just make out the swelling on his lower lip from where he bit down on it while getting sucked off against the bathroom wall.  
  
“You’ll be okay,” Harry says. He leans down and presses a sideways kiss to Louis’ lips. “You’ve got me.”  
  
Louis smiles on reflex, because it’s nice, and then the feeling in his chest hits his throat and he chokes on it. He wraps his hand around the back of Harry’s neck and pulls him down into another kiss before he has a chance to say anything else huge and terrifying, and Harry complies happily, opening his mouth to let Louis’ tongue inside.  
  
As long as this keeps going, as long as it’s Harry’s mouth and Harry’s body to distract him, he can keep everything else at bay. People have casual sex all the time. Hell, he used to have casual sex all the time. He can do it again. He doesn’t have to fall into anything.  
  
Harry’s mouth breaks off for half a moment and then he’s climbing over the back of the sofa and straddling Louis’ hips and,  _Christ_ , he’s already starting to get hard again. Should that even be possible? Even after the hour-long interlude on the coffee table? Even after the thing with the jam? Obviously Harry is some kind of sex demon designed specifically to ruin him.  
  
Harry leans back down and kisses him properly, and it’s just. It’s not fair how perfectly their angles line up. Louis doesn’t stand a chance against the way his lip fits between the soft pull of Harry’s, the way Harry’s hand settles into the small of his back like it belongs there. It’s too good, too much, and that’s why Louis hasn’t been able to make himself disengage for what feels like days but has only been hours, since the first kiss under the stage lights.  
  
Stage lights. Shit. He left all the stage lights on, and all those costumes out, and he’ll need to go in early today to get everything back in order before classes start for the day, and then he needs to make copies of worksheets and call his set designer to make sure the last piece will be painted in time, and he should really get in the shower soon,  _shit_ —  
  
“Stop thinking,” Harry says, voice whiskey-rough and vibrating deep in Louis’ chest where they’re pressed together. “Just a little longer.”  
  
 _Yes, all right_ , his brain says, because really, how can he hope to argue with that, but then Harry slides his mouth down to Louis’ throat and starts working on a bruise and Louis has to stop him.  
  
“Wait, wait,” he says, tugging lightly on Harry’s hair to get him to pull off. “Not there. Too visible.”  
  
Harry whines a little. “Come on, Lou. I wanna do it somewhere people can see.”  
  
Louis rolls his eyes, ignoring the rush of heat Harry’s words send through him. He doesn’t have enough left in him to deal with that, much less flip them over, so he just pulls on Harry’s elbow and makes discontented noises until Harry gets the hint and switches their positions.  
  
“Put your hands above your head,” Louis tells him.  
  
Harry smirks and does as he’s told, grabbing onto the armrest behind him and wriggling his hips a little under Louis’. Cheeky bastard. Louis kisses him once more on the lips, then the side of his neck, then bows his head and sinks his teeth into the inside of his left bicep. Harry hisses at the pressure, hooking one of his knees around Louis’, and Louis sucks hard enough on his skin to make him dig his fingernails into Louis’ back.  
  
When he’s satisfied with his work, he breaks the suction with a small, wet sound and plants a kiss on the spot.  
  
“There,” Louis says. He pulls back to let Harry see the place where he’s been marked, vivid red on fair skin in the shape of Louis’ mouth. “Visible but inconspicuous. Nobody even has to see it unless you want them to. The perfect solution.”  
  
Harry smiles up at him, and Louis isn’t sure if he’s pleased with being marked or with Louis’ ingenuity. “All right,” he says, reaching up to touch Louis’ lips with the tip of his finger. “That’ll be your spot, then.”  
  
Thankfully, Louis is saved from having to come up with a response to that when Harry slaps him on the arse and nudges him off. “Now go on, get in the shower. I’ll even give you five minutes before I come in after you.”  
  
“How generous of you,” Louis says, wobbling to his feet.  
  
Harry just presses his lips together like he’s trying to contain his smile. “You’ve no idea.”  
  
When Louis finally makes it to the bathroom, he has to take a moment to brace himself before looking at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He’s not sure what to expect at all.  
  
 _Debauched_ , he believes, is the word for what he sees when he opens his eyes. His hair is a absolute catastrophe, the Hindenburg of hairdos, mussed up in the back and greasy from sweat and matted with jam on one side and, seriously, whose fucking idea was the jam? His mouth is rubbed red and raw. The marks on his ribs and hip are already turning colors from pink to purple, and Louis thanks the powers that be for whatever miracle of restraint that kept him from letting Harry put one of those on his throat. There’s no way he could have hidden that without some really elaborate scarf maneuvering.  
  
He’s a complete mess, and worst of all, he  _likes_  it.  
  
“Get a grip,” he says to his reflection.  
  
He pulls back the shower curtain and almost has a heart attack when he sees something lurking in his bathtub until he realises it’s Duchess, curled up in the corner and looking deeply reproachful. Apparently the bath had been the only safe place left in his flat.  
  
“Sorry, love,” Louis says, reaching out to stroke her head apologetically. She glares at him and evades his touch, leaping out of the bath and disappearing around the door.  
  
True to his word, Harry gives him enough time to wash his hair in peace under lukewarm water before climbing into the shower behind him. He slides his hands through the suds on Louis’ stomach and pulls his back up against his own chest, dropping his head down over Louis’ shoulder to kiss the wet skin on the side of his neck. Louis’ body melts into the touch, and he closes his eyes, shutting his brain up for a few minutes just to feel Harry’s hands spanning his hips and Harry’s wet hair sticking to his cheek. Every inch of Harry’s body is slick and close, and Louis gets to have all of that, gets to touch it however he wants.  
  
He covers one of Harry’s hands with his own, and he feels Harry smile against his shoulder.

**Z**

  
  
Zayn is such a wonderful friend, honestly. He reminds himself of this interminable truth as he hugs his cardigan tighter against his body and soldiers on down the corridor. Who else would drag himself out of bed at this kind of unforgivable hour, a full thirty minutes earlier than usual, just to stop by to check in on how Louis is doing with everything he’s juggling at the moment? No one. Well, maybe Harry, but he doesn’t count. Wanting to fuck someone begets feats of superhuman strength and dedication. Zayn would know.  
  
He rounds the corner to Louis’ hall and almost stops in his tracks. There’s a single classroom with its door open pouring light into the dim hallway, and from it Zayn can hear the sounds of singing.  
  
He knows Louis can sing. You don’t have the kind of long-term, codependent relationship Louis has with theater without that kind of talent. Years ago he dug up the videos of teenage Louis as Danny Zuko on YouTube and teased him about them for a month, but even in grainy video of a low-budget school play, it was clear that once upon a time Louis Tomlinson lived to perform. He hardly ever lets anyone hear him sing anymore, having apparently packed that part of himself away with the part that believes romance is anything other than a waste of time.  
  
But right here in front of his face is Louis standing up on a stool in his classroom, stapling papers up to the bulletin board and singing to himself, “ _Met a boy, cute as can be—_ ”  
  
“Morning,” Zayn says.  
  
Louis almost falls off his stool in surprise. He whips his head around, clutching the wall for support, but his shoulders relax when he sees that it’s only Zayn.  
  
“Oh, hello,” he says, trying too hard for casual and advancing directly to Definitely Hiding Something. “What are you doing here so early?”  
  
“I was coming to see if you needed any help,” Zayn says. He narrows his eyes at Louis. He’s got circles under his eyes and he’s favoring his left side, but every other part of him looks totally at peace, satisfied and... oh. “Good Lord. You finally shagged Harry.”  
  
“What?” Louis chirps, half-falling and half-climbing down from his stool. “How did you—oh God, it doesn’t,” his eyes dart around the room in horror, “it doesn’t  _smell_  like anything in here, does it?”  
  
“What, no, why would...” Zayn’s brain catches up to Louis’ words, and he suddenly feels deeply distrustful of every desk in the room. “Louis. You didn’t.”  
  
“No, no,” Louis says quickly. “I, of course not. Ethics and all that.”  
  
Zayn relaxes a bit, but his smugness stays in place. He  _knew_  it. He’s been trying to tell Louis for  _months_  that Harry was well set to fuck, and he was right. He  _knows_.  
  
“But you  _did_  shag Harry,” he says, grinning. Louis opens and closes his mouth a few times, looking like a flustered, recently-shagged fish, but he can’t seem to come up with a lie. His shoulders slump in defeat finally, and it’s all Zayn can do not to laugh aloud.  
  
“How did you know?” Louis says, surrendering.  
  
“Mate,” Zayn says, placing a hand on Louis’ shoulder. “You were singing ‘Summer Nights.’”  
  
Louis pulls a face. “So?”  
  
“It’s December, and you’re you,” Zayn says, and he can’t help but laugh at the rueful expression on Louis’ face. It’s a nice look on him. “Relax, Lou, I’m happy for you. Was it, you know, good?”  
  
Zayn’s heard all the graphic details of Louis’ sexual exploits more than once, descriptions of the backsides of men he’s never met and details he never wanted to know, but this time Louis just laughs a little, turning his face away. “He’s very... agile,” Louis says, and the way he blushes tells Zayn all he needs to know. So Louis Tomlinson is capable of bashfulness after all, eh? Zayn is going to have fun with this.  
  
“Tell me more, Louis,” Zayn says, as serious as he can manage. “Tell me more. Did you get very far?”  
  
“I am five seconds from braining you with this stapler,” Louis says, but there’s no force to it at all. He’s blushing too much to look threatening.  
  
“So, the two of you are...” Zayn eyes him. “What, now?”  
  
Louis drops his eyes, shrugging. “I don’t know. It’s not... I don’t know.” He coughs. “Oh, by the way, have you got the the code to unlock the copy machine upstairs? The one down here isn’t working, and I’ve never used the other one before.”  
  
“Yeah, I’ll walk up there with you after first period,” Zayn says dismissively, knowing an attempt at a subject change when he sees one. “So you haven’t had that talk yet?”  
  
Louis keeps pretending to be intensely interested in the stapler. “Hmm? What talk?”  
  
Zayn rolls his eyes. It’s hard enough to get Louis to open up about this kind of thing on a normal day, God knows this is going to be like pulling teeth. “The talk. The, oh, hey, we used to be friends who don’t shag and now we’re friends who do, talk.”  
  
“No, we, uh,” Louis clears his throat. “We’re going to put that stuff off until after the play is done, you know? And the end of term. I’m busy with work, and he’s got finals, so. We’ll deal with that later.” He accidentally opens the stapler and hurriedly closes it again. “And, um, no more. You know. Sex. Until after the term's over.”  
  
Zayn raises his eyebrows, leaning back against Louis’ desk. “And you talked to him about this?”  
  
“Yes,” Louis says defensively. “And we’ll talk about the other stuff, too. Eventually.”  
  
“Okay, okay, it’s none of my business,” Zayn says, holding up his hands.  
  
“I don’t see that there’s so much to talk about, anyway,” Louis mumbles. “Like you said, we’re friends who shag now. Doesn’t seem like rocket science.”  
  
“That is not what I—Christ.” Zayn runs a hand over his face. “None of my business. Right. Anyway. Is this all hush-hush or can I tell Niall?”  
  
Louis laughs. “Niall can know, yeah, not that he’ll care. No one else, though, okay? Don’t need any other nosy parkers asking questions.” He prods Zayn in the stomach, and Zayn slaps him lightly on the back of the head.  
  
“Just looking out for you, prick. All right, I’ve got to go unlock my room. See you in a bit.” He walks out of the room and makes it halfway down the hall before he turns back, ducking his head into Louis’ classroom again.  
  
“Hey, Lou?” Louis looks up at him expectantly. “I really am happy for you, yeah?” Louis ducks his head, but Zayn can still see the helpless smile on his face.  
  
“Thanks, Zayn,” Louis says in a little voice, and Zayn hums to himself as he walks back down the hallway. If what he hums is “Summer Nights,” he certainly doesn’t plan on telling Louis.  
  
He’s glad later that he stopped in that morning, because after he helps Louis with the copy machine he barely sees him until opening night of the play. Zayn’s got the term to finish up, too, and even when he has a free moment, Louis doesn’t. Every spare second Louis has is spent on the play, and even when Zayn drops by rehearsals to pitch in Louis is torn in about twenty directions at once, usually only having time to direct Zayn towards something that needs to get done before haring off to deal with five other problems.  
  
The upside, though, is that he gets to watch Louis and Harry interact, since Harry seems to take any opportunity to show up at the theatre, usually with tea. They’re always around students, so the two of them probably think they’re keeping a lid on things, but even if Louis hadn’t told Zayn what had happened Zayn would have been able to figure it out when he saw them together. He knows what to look for.  
  
When Zayn moved into his flat three years ago, his mum had come over to help him decorate. When they were done—or when he’d thought they were done—she’d gone out to her car and come back inside with two small houseplants. She’d told him he shouldn’t be the only living thing in his home, kissed him on the cheek, and put them on the windowsill. By the time Christmas had rolled around, both the plants had been distinctly crooked, growing unerringly towards the sunlight that streamed through the window every afternoon. Harry and Louis are like those plants, if plants could be sunlight to each other.  
  
They’d been bad before, but now it’s so much clearer, the way they unconsciously turn to and gravitate towards each other. Harry is tentative with it, moving slow and steady around Louis like he’s a skittish animal Harry is afraid of spooking, and Zayn keeps catching him reaching out to touch Louis and then pulling back at the last second. Louis, for his part, still seems a little incredulous, watching Harry from across the room and psyching himself up for several minutes before he’ll wander over, sliding his fingers over Harry’s wrist, and then scurry off to some other urgent task, a look on his face like he can’t believe he got away with it. Other times Louis will catch Harry staring, and his face will light up in an unreserved smile before he remembers himself and flees backstage, Harry grinning after him.  
  
It’s sweet, and childish, and rare, and Zayn is half thrilled for his friends and half seethingly jealous. In the long run, though, it’s just proof of his belief in the power of love to move even the most immovable of mountains (read: Louis Tomlinson’s pride), so he really can’t complain.  
  
It’s enough to light a fire under his own arse, so to speak. Nothing quite like two of your close friends shagging to make you desperate to get your own epic romance back in motion. He spends three days working up the nerve, drafting and deleting two dozen different messages, before he finally sends Liam a text inviting him to Louis’ annual birthday/Christmas party on Christmas Eve. Liam’s response is full of genuine thanks and a promise to try to make it if he can get off of work, and Zayn maybe does a victory lap around his flat in just his pants.  
  
Even with all the time he spends compulsively checking to see if Liam’s got any word on whether or not he’ll be able to go, the end of the week passes in a flurry. Zayn gives his exams, and collects final papers, and when he collapses into his seat on the opening night of  _Much Ado About Nothing_  he is finally, finally done with the term.  
  
He’s just pulling out his phone to stare at his empty inbox some more when someone slides into the seat next to him, and he turns to see Harry.  
  
“Mind if I join you?” Harry asks.  
  
“Course not,” Zayn says, pocketing his phone again. Since Niall is up in the sound booth, he doesn’t really have anyone else to sit with anyway. And he’s been meaning to talk to Harry for a few days now, actually. “So, you done with finals yet?”  
  
Harry heaves a sigh. “Yeah, finally. Turned in my last project today. Was up all night in the darkroom, but it feels good to be done. You?”  
  
Zayn nods. “Finished today too. I mean, I’ve got a shitload of marking to do over the holidays, but it could be worse.” They lapse into silence for a few minutes, watching other audience members take their seats and catching glimpses of cast members peeking out from behind the curtains, before Zayn clears his throat.  
  
“So,” he says. “Harry.”  
  
Harry turns in his seat, looking at him with a poorly-concealed smile. “Zayn.”  
  
Zayn feels like a twat, but he has responsibilities. “Louis and I have been friends for a very long time now.” Harry nods. “And he may be an utter bastard, but I’m fond of him anyway.”  
  
Another nod. “I know what you mean.”  
  
Zayn can’t help but smile a little at that, before schooling his face back into seriousness. “Since I’m fond of him, I would be very upset if he were to, I don’t know, be hurt in any way. By anyone.” He looks Harry in the eyes. “And I am, as you know, very familiar with various arson techniques.”  
  
“Duly noted,” Harry says, continuing to fail at hiding his grin.  
  
Zayn keeps his eye contact level and even. “Very. Familiar.”  
  
He holds Harry’s gaze for about five more seconds before cracking up. “God, I almost had it,” he says, giggling, and he’s set Harry off into full-blown cackles.  
  
“Don’t worry, man, if I didn’t know you I’d have shit myself,” he says, wiping away tears. “Arson techniques, fuck me.” He claps Zayn on the back. “You’re a good friend, man. I’m glad he has you.”  
  
Zayn reaches out and ruffles his hair. “You both have me, you prat.” At that moment, the lights begin to dim, and they both withdraw to their respective sides of the armrest and settle back for the show. “I will murder you, though,” Zayn whispers as the curtain parts, and Harry gives him a thumbs-up before the first soliloquy starts.  
  
The play is good—surprisingly good, if Zayn’s going to be honest. The two leads have great chemistry, sparking off each other, and good enough comedic timing that the audience laughs where they’re supposed to. The final scene arrives before Zayn ever gets bored, and when he joins the standing ovation he finds he really means it. Every cast member gets their moment in the spotlight, and then Louis is dragged onstage by the two leads for a round of applause of his own. Next to Zayn, Harry puts two fingers in his mouth and lets out a piercing whistle.  
  
As the applause dies off, people start getting up and trickling out of the theatre. Harry and Zayn move against the flow of traffic, heading to the stage, where Louis is hugging various actors and crew members. When he turns and sees them approaching, he hops down off the stage and pulls them both into an embrace.  
  
“Oh my God, it wasn’t terrible, it actually wasn’t terrible,” he says in a rush, muffled by the side of Harry’s head. Zayn laughs and pulls out of the group hug, watching the way Harry’s arm slips to circle Louis’ waist. He glances backwards, feeling suddenly protective of them, and shifts slightly to block the two of them from the audience’s view.  
  
“It wasn’t even a little terrible,” he tells Louis, whose face is still half-hidden in Harry’s shoulder. “Well, except for when Claudio sneezed on Hero, but I suppose that wasn’t really his fault.”  
  
“Yeah, and Beatrice and Bendy Dick were really good,” Harry adds.  
  
Louis groans and covers his eyes with his hand. “It’s Benedick. You  _know_  that it’s Benedick.”  
  
Harry just smiles and rubs his nose in Louis’ hair. “Bendy Dick.”  
  
“Speaking of,” Zayn says, and Louis looks up. “I think your cast is waiting on you.”  
  
Zayn jerks his chin toward the crowd behind them. The students are milling about the stage, hugging and congratulating each other but seeming unwilling to go anywhere without their director. Zayn’s going to pretend he doesn’t see some of them starting to notice Harry’s hold on Louis.  
  
“Shit, yeah, sorry,” Louis says, extricating himself from Harry at last. “I’ve got to, sorry—”  
  
“No worries,” Harry says. “Go congratulate your kids. They were great. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? Same time, same place.”  
  
“You’re coming to tomorrow’s show?” Louis says, his mouth falling slightly open. Harry just nods, and Louis’ face breaks out in a smile so bright it’s almost blinding. Harry smiles back, hands in his pockets, and it’s like the play’s back on, except now it’s just Harry and Louis inside their own little isolated spotlight world.  
  
“Well, I’m not,” Zayn interjects, mostly to remind the two of them that he exists. “Amazing job, Lou, really well done. See you next week.” He looks over at Harry because he’s starting to fear that he may have to actually physically drag him out of whatever gravitational pull Louis seems to have him trapped in. “Let’s leave him to it, yeah?”  
  
Harry says a reluctant goodbye, and Zayn feels a little stupid for even trying to give him the You Break His Heart, I Break Your Legs speech when he’s watching him watch Louis fade into the crowd of costumed bodies with that look on his face.  
  
“How d’you feel about grabbing a pint?” Zayn says, elbowing Harry out of whatever train of thought he’s currently off on. “Been a long week, I could use it. I’m sure Niall will be up for it, too.”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says, finally pulling his eyes off of Louis’ back. “Yeah, that sounds brilliant.”  
  
Harry lets himself be steered away, and Zayn keeps an arm around his shoulders all the way out of the theatre, just in case.

 

 

**Chapter 7.**

 

  
Louis knows that the holidays are supposed to be a time of rest in theory, but the days between the closing night of the play and Christmas Eve are a complete blur. When he’s not striking the set, he’s marking term papers. When he’s not marking term papers, he’s looking over exams. When he’s not looking over exams, he’s making his excuses to Harry, who he hasn’t seen in days. And when he’s not apologizing to Harry, he’s preparing for the annual Louis Tomlinson Holiday Extravaganza.  
  
The Extravanganza had taken place on Christmas Eve for the last three years, each time to greater and greater acclaim. It is an immovable date on the social calendar of everyone who matters in Louis’ life, and with good reason: it’s Louis’ birthday. And it shall not pass uncelebrated, despite whatever lesser holidays might follow it.  
  
It had started out as a simple Christmas/birthday party the first year that he’d moved to Manchester, before he’d had many friends. He’d wanted to impress his new colleagues, so he’d made an effort. Naturally, when Louis makes an effort, the results are legendary, and his party had been the talk of the teachers’ lounge for weeks. Zayn may or may not have been photographed wearing a lampshade on his head and little else. Such are the foundations of friendship.  
  
Unfortunately, his success had consequences. He had to out-do himself the next year, so suddenly instead of a few bowls of punch and eggnog there had been a full bar with Christmas-themed drinks. Niall had woken up on the roof of the building dressed as Father Christmas, and Louis had chalked up another victory. But then Christmas came around again, and he couldn’t let everyone down, so he’d moved all the furniture out of his flat and created a dance floor, complete with a red and green strobe light. It had been quite the hit, even with the policemen who arrived to break the party up.  
  
And now it’s time to do it all again, bigger and better. He has a reputation to maintain. Sadly, the fact that his life has descended into a state of disaster over the past month means that he’s not as prepared as he usually is by now. By this time last year, he’d already placed an order for ten dozen festive cakeballs, stockpiled five cases of beer in the snowdrift on his balcony, coated fifty yards of fake popcorn garland in gold glitter, and gotten Duchess up to a record nine minutes before she ripped her tiny elf hat off and tried to eat it. This time around he hasn’t even got enough food in his fridge to feed himself lunch, much less accommodate the mobs of people coming to make merry. He needs to get his arse in gear.  
  
Thankfully he sent out the invitations—tiny cards attached to glass Christmas ornaments with silk ribbon and nestled inside gold boxes on a bed of gold-flecked tissue paper, tasteful and fun, Christ he is good—before things got too hectic. But there’s still the matter of food, drinks, entertainment, decorations, and every small detail in between. He ends up clutching two hundred red plastic cups to his chest in the party store, having a nervous breakdown over tablecloths and alcohol logistics, so he calls Zayn and Niall in as reinforcements. It pains him to admit defeat, but he can’t do it alone this time.  
  
“You know, you could call Harry,” Niall tells him one afternoon while he’s hanging his eleventh string of lights along the ceiling of Louis’ flat. “I’m sure he’d be willing to help.”  
  
“Not happening,” Louis says. He keeps his eyes trained on the table arrangement he’s working on. Red, white, and silver is his palette this year. Inspired. He is arranging decorative pomegranates. Pomegranates will keep him sane.  
  
He pretends like he doesn’t notice Niall and Zayn exchanging a look across the living room.  
  
Harry keeps texting him throughout the week, offering to pick up anything he might need or come by to help him set up. Louis shrugs him off every time and insists that everything is under control even when it clearly is not, even when he almost breaks his leg falling off the ladder while getting a box of decorations down from the top of his cupboard. He feels shitty about it, but he’s afraid that having Harry around will lead to him having to talk about feelings, which is just not exactly something he feels like handling right now. Or ever, really. So he keeps his head down and hopes Harry doesn’t hate him for it.  
  
They make it through seven days of scrambling, of cleaning his apartment from top to bottom, of searching for a place in Manchester that will rent him a chocolate fountain on such short notice, and by the night of 23rd he’s finally, finally ready. The ashtrays are sparkling. The pudding is chilling in the fridge. The Christmas-themed shot glasses have been arranged on the counter with care, in hopes that people will get absolutely, monumentally sloshed.  
  
Louis is finally curled up warm in his bed and starting to drift off when the buzz of his phone wakes him up. He squints at the light and thumbs through the lock screen to find one last text message from Harry waiting in his inbox.  
  
 _please at least let me bring something, i want to help xx_  
  
Louis buries his face in his pillow. He is shagging the most genuinely good person on the planet outside of Zayn’s fireman and probably some nuns somewhere. He is almost definitely a dick.  
  
 _bake something if u want_ , he texts back, then he shoves his phone under his pillow and wills himself to sleep.  
  
He wakes up early the next day to nine birthday texts because, oh, right, it’s his birthday. He managed to forget that part somewhere along the way. There’s one from Harry, one from Zayn, one from Niall, one from his mum and two of his sisters, and the rest from his old Doncaster friends. He reads them as he steeps his tea. He is twenty-six years old.  
  
“I am,” Louis says to his cat, “officially closer to thirty than twenty.”  
  
Duchess stares at him, then knocks over a tin of plastic spoons in a way that looks deliberate.  
  
He doesn’t have much time to dwell on his age since his day is full of fielding phone calls and deliveries of hors d’oeuvres, setting out plates and napkins, making a last minute run to the shop because he forgot he was out of his favourite kind of brandy. He spends most evening before the party meticulously ironing his red trousers and trying on three different pairs of braces before rejecting them all in favor of a fuzzy white jumper, because it’s cold, damn it.  
  
Niall arrives an hour before the party sporting a red and green snapback, and starts to set up the AV equipment. He and his endless playlist of Christmas remixes have always been in charge of the music for this particular party, but this year Louis has got him hooking up karaoke in addition to the dance floor.  
  
Zayn’s the next one to arrive, the only time a year when he’s not fashionably late and only because it’s under threat of bodily harm from Louis.  
  
“Excuse me,” Louis says, blocking the door with his body when Zayn tries to come inside. “Do I know you? Are you on the guest list?”  
  
“Quit fucking around, Louis, it’s cold out here,” Zayn huffs, teeth chattering.  
  
“You look so much like my friend Zayn,” Louis says, “except he’s the type of lad who always adheres to his friends’ party dress codes, and your head is tragically lacking in any festive headwear. You are a complete stranger to me.”  
  
Zayn glares at him, his face lit up in flashes by the multicolored lights on Louis’ own hat, which is in the shape of a Christmas tree. He mumbles something Louis can’t understand, half-muffled by his scarf and the turned-up collar of his coat.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Louis says, holding one hand up to his ear dramatically. “Didn’t quite catch that.”  
  
“I said, I spent a really long time on my hair!” Zayn says.  
  
“Ah,  _yes_!” Louis says as he steps aside. “ _Now_  I recognize you!” Zayn aims a kick at Louis’ shin as he slips inside, but Louis dodges it. “Should I take this to mean that your man candy is coming tonight after all?”  
  
“You know I would have told you if he’d said so,” Zayn says. He shrugs his coat off, bumping his fist against Niall’s as he passes on the way to dump it on Louis’ bed. Louis has them all well-trained on the party coat protocol by now. “Last I heard it was still a maybe.”  
  
“Well, mate,” Niall says, “if he doesn’t turn up, we could always just set the tree on fire.”  
  
“Ha-bloody-ha,” Zayn says. “Get me drunk enough and I just might.”  
  
It’s not long before people start pouring in, bottles of liquor and boxes of beer in hand. Niall’s got the stereo playing something relatively relaxed, some acoustic cover of “O Holy Night,” but Louis knows he’s just easing people into things before everyone gets drunk enough for him to switch on the strobe light. The turnout is good, as usual, and Louis is pleased to see that everyone other than Zayn is honoring the mandatory hat rule he put on the invitations.  
  
It’s always interesting to see all of his different worlds collide. Everyone mills about, talking and drinking and laughing, gradually filling in the walls of Louis’s flat with faces from every part of his life, one of his old friends from uni chatting up his librarian in the corner, Zayn’s TA doing shots with two of the girls from two doors over. He’s just said hello to Stan, who came bounding in with a case of beer and two of the other Doncaster lads, when the door swings open again and he’s almost hit in the face with a stack of boxes.  
  
“Sorry!” says the person behind them, and if Louis didn’t know that voice intimately by now, the curly hair peeking over the top of the boxes would have given Harry away immediately. “Sorry, can’t really see where I’m—oh, hello, birthday boy!”  
  
Harry’s stuck his head around the side of his armload of boxes to smile at Louis. He’s wearing a pair of reindeer antlers with little jingle bells hanging from them, and there are snowflakes in his curls. It’s the first time Louis has seen him in a week, and he’s helpless to do anything but smile stupidly back at him, wishing he was maybe a little less tipsy for this.  
  
“Nice hat,” Harry says happily. He leans in to kiss Louis on the cheek but misses, too busy trying to balance everything he’s carrying, and lands somewhere between his cheekbone and his hair.  
  
“What in the name of Christ is all that?” Louis says, closing the door behind Harry before too much snow comes inside.  
  
“You told me to bake something,” Harry says. He starts making his way to the kitchen, the crowd parting like the Red Sea to let him through, and Louis follows. “I may have gotten a bit carried away.”  
  
He sets the boxes down on the small amount of empty space left on Louis’ kitchen table and starts unpacking them and, Jesus, Harry has outdone himself this time. The first four boxes are filled with a dozen cupcakes each, different flavors, all iced in varying shades of Christmas colors and covered in sprinkles. The last box is the tallest, and when Harry opens it, Louis feels his mouth drop open.  
  
“ _Haz_.”  
  
It’s a cake, three layers by the looks of it, all thick off-white frosting and red trim. In the middle of it in red icing script are the words  _Happy Birthday, Louis_! The i’s are dotted with little smiley faces.  
  
Louis stares at it for a few seconds, then yanks Harry roughly into a hug by the waist, and Harry’s laughing at him but he’s buzzed and Harry  _made him a birthday cake_  and what else can he do?  
  
“I didn’t know if you already had one or not,” Harry says when Louis lets him go.  
  
“I—” Louis begins, and then stops and starts again. “No, with everything else I’d, I’d completely forgotten.”  
  
“Good, then,” Harry says, grinning. “Hope you like red velvet.”  
  
Louis bumps Harry’s shoulder with his own and picks up one of the boxes of cupcakes. “Come on, then, let’s get these all out before I get too drunk to be trusted with things that could stain the carpet.”  
  
And, well, honestly, the cupcakes really do not match his color palette at all. Part of him wants to die a little when he thinks of bright blue and green frosting and gold sprinkles in between his carefully chosen trays of peppermint bark and silver dusted sugar cookies, but the rest of him really doesn’t care. The rest of him just wants to put them somewhere everyone can see.  
  
“What’re all these?” Harry says, pointing to the punch bowls set up on the counter.  
  
“Ah, the Tomlinson Christmas special,” Louis says proudly. “The one on the right is eggnog with brandy, and then the one on the left on the warmers is hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps.”  
  
“Impressive,” Harry says with a nod. “Wish I could drink tonight.”  
  
Louis pauses in the middle of arranging a cupcake pyramid to frown at him. “Why can’t you?”  
  
“Promised my mum I’d be home when she woke up for Christmas morning,” Harry tells him. “I’ve got my suitcase in the car already.”  
  
“Hm, guess you get a pass this time, Styles,” Louis says, returning to his cupcakes. He tries not to think about the fact that Harry will be sober all night and capable of remembering everything Louis says or does while drunk. That sounds like a problem for Sober Louis, who vacated the premises about half an hour ago.  
  
“Hey,” Harry says quietly, and when Louis looks up, Harry’s face is soft and careful. “We’re okay?”  
  
Louis looks at Harry standing there on the other side of the desserts, two cupcakes in each hand, and he hates that he’s made him feel like he has to ask. “Yeah, we’re okay.”  
  
The first wave of older faculty members from the school and people who have to be home early starts to clear out around ten o’clock, and Louis knows that means it’s almost time for things to kick up a notch or five. When the head of the English department—the last person any of them could possibly get in trouble for getting drunk and disorderly in front of—finally leaves, Stan shuts the door behind her.  
  
“All right,” Stan shouts, “let’s do some fucking  _shots_!”  
  
A cheer goes up through the entire flat, and Niall hits the lights. One of his own creations comes blasting through the stereo system, a remixed Rosemary Clooney/LMFAO mashup he made last year and titled “Have Yourself a Merry Little Shot,” and someone starts passing out a round of vodka shots.  
  
“Gird your loins, Harold,” Louis says, turning to grasp Harry by the shoulder. He’s aware that his words are already starting to slur a little, but it’s okay. It only serves to drive his point home, really.  
  
“Consider them girded,” Harry says. He passes his shot along with a wink as if to remind Louis that he has already become well acquainted with Harry’s loins. Louis elbows him in the side before climbing up onto one of the kitchen chairs, raising his shot glass aloft.  
  
“Ahem,” he shouts over the crowd and the music. “Mr. Horan, if you would be so kind as to turn the music down a smidge.” Niall obliges, and everyone turns to face Louis, shots in hand.  
  
“I’d like to thank all of you lovely people for turning up tonight to celebrate the reason for the season: me.” Everyone laughs at that, and Louis throws up a finger to all of them, grinning. “Honestly, though, I don’t know where I’d be without you lot. So I’d like to propose a toast! To myself, of course, and to all of you, to old friends and new,” he looks down and catches Harry’s eye at that one, and Harry is grinning back at him, jingle bells gleaming under the lights, “to another year, and of course, to getting absolutely pissed and making tits of ourselves tonight with no regard to our personal safety, cheers!”  
  
Everyone shouts their agreement and throws back their shots at once, and after a chorus of coughing and sputtering, Niall cranks the music back up.  
  
From his position, Louis is able to take a moment to assess the whole party at once. The makeshift dance floor is already packed, dozens of Christmas hats bobbing around in time to the music. Someone is lining up another batch of shots on the kitchen counter. Two people are drunkenly ravishing each other under the mistletoe. A promising start.  
  
The only one who doesn’t seem to be having any fun is Zayn, who has spent the last thirty minutes sulking on his phone in the corner. Even his quiff looks a bit defeated, although that might just be from when Niall tried to force a Santa hat onto his head earlier.  
  
“Harry,” Louis yells over the din, “I think I may need you to help me down, as my motor skills are not what they were an hour ago.”  
  
Harry laughs and offers his hand, which Louis accepts, allowing himself to be guided down by Harry’s other hand on his hip. He’s drunk and happy enough to give him a slap on the arse as thanks.  
  
“Must go see about our brave little soldier of unrequited love,” Louis says, and Harry nods and nudges him off, turning around to pick up a conversation with Stan. Louis weaves his way through the crowd, stumbling a little before he reaches the chair shoved off to the wall by the bathroom where Zayn is pouting.  
  
“Zayn,” Louis says, leaning down to peer into Zayn’s face. “Zaaaaaayn. Stop tweeting sad song lyrics and come dance with me.”  
  
“I’m not—” Zayn snaps, but then he looks up and catches sight of something over Louis’ shoulder and his entire face freezes in an expression of cartoon shock.  
  
Louis spins around, expecting to see that someone’s broken a window or stepped on his cat or snogged someone they shouldn’t, but what he finds is Liam standing in the doorway of his flat and looking very, very out of place.  
  
“My God,” Louis says, flattening a hand over his heart, “it’s a Christmas miracle.”  
  
He makes his way across the room, leaving Zayn paralyzed behind him like he’s just seen the ghost of Christmas something or other. Louis catches a glimpse of Niall as he moves, and he’s practically jumping up and down, looking extremely drunk and extremely excited, pointing jerkily to Liam with his mouth moving in something that looks like, “ _Are you seeing this shit?_ ” Louis grins at him and gives him a double thumbs up. Tonight is going to be even more fun than he expected.  
  
“Hello!” Louis when he reaches Liam, a picture of yuletide cheer. Before the poor man even has a chance to respond, Louis yanks him into a hug. “Happy Christmas! So glad you could make it!”  
  
Liam, to his credit, returns the hug with significantly less awkwardness than Louis was expecting. His coat is scratchy dark wool and very practical. When Louis pulls away, he’s smiling genuinely at him, looking pleased just to have some new friends.  
  
Before Liam has a chance to say anything, Zayn is suddenly right next to them, smiling in a way that is probably supposed to be winsome and casual but which Louis can easily recognize as the blind hysteria that it is. He hauls Liam into a hug of his own, made brave by alcohol and Louis having broken the ice already. Louis keeps close track of Liam’s response, since he knows Zayn will grill him about it later. He closes his eyes when Zayn hugs him, still smiling, and doesn’t even look alarmed when Zayn holds on a bit too long.  
  
“Sorry I’m so late,” Liam says when they break apart, and he really does look sincere about it. “Work was insane today, and then I got caught in the snow on the way over.”  
  
“It’s fine, it’s totally fine, it’s, you know, we’re...” Zayn trails off and lapses into silence for a moment, just staring blissfully at Liam like he still can’t believe he’s actually there. Liam blinks back at him.  
  
“Zayn,” Louis says pointedly, treading on his foot, “why don’t you show our friend where he can put his coat?”  
  
“Yes, right, of course,” Zayn says, springing back into action. He grabs Liam by the elbow and gives it a little tug. “This way, and then you’ve got to see the food, we’ve got  _loads_.”  
  
They disappear into the crowd, and Louis turns to find Harry staring at him from the kitchen, wide-eyed.  
  
“Oh my  _God_ ,” Harry mouths.  
  
“I  _know_ ,” Louis mouths back.  
  
After that it’s honestly all a bit blurry for Louis. Someone hands him another shot, and then he has a glass of eggnog, and then another, and then some concoction of Niall’s that tastes like cranberry sauce and Ireland and the promise of a hangover. He remembers somebody’s shirt hitting him in the face as it was flung across the room and downing at least four cupcakes until his mouth is stained green. He remembers Niall signing some woman's boobs, which should be confusing but honestly doesn't throw him much at the time. He remembers watching Zayn spill his own plate of food everywhere while telling Liam something with a lot of hand gestures and then mostly staring in awe as Liam fetched a dishtowel and started cleaning it up for him. He remembers Niall coming over the sound system to tell everyone to shut the fuck up while Harry lit up the candles on the cake, and he remembers everyone singing him happy birthday. He doesn’t remember what he wishes for, but he remembers looking at Harry while he does it.  
  
He’s leaned up against the kitchen counter, trying to get his vision straight for long enough to tell whether or not he needs to put out more food, when Stan sidles up next to him and throws an arm over his shoulders.  
  
“So, mate,” he says, breath smelling of beer and meat pies, “anything new happening? You know, in your... life.”  
  
Louis squints at him. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, because I am a bit very drunk, but have we not already had this conversation tonight?”  
  
“Yes, but you did not mention that strapping fellow,” Stan says, gesturing across the party. Harry is over by the stereo with Niall on his back, laughing as he looks through the karaoke song selections.  
  
“Yeah, that’s Harry,” Louis says.  
  
“I know,” Stan says, rolling his eyes. “We’ve met. He brought you a birthday cake.”  
  
“Yes, he did,” Louis says. His strategy is to be as noncommittal as possible and then maybe the conversation will just end. Also, drink. He needs another drink.  
  
“So, what’s the story?” Stan presses. “I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s quite fit.”  
  
Louis can’t help but smile ruefully down at his cup as he fills it with cider. “Quite.”  
  
“He seems to like you a lot,” Stan says, and that gets Louis’ attention.  
  
“What d’you mean?” Louis says, his head popping up. “Did he say something to you?”  
  
“Aha!” Stan crows, looking triumphant. “So there’s something happening there, eh?”  
  
Louis shoves his shoulder into Stan’s and pulls a face that he intends to be disdain, but he’s so drunk that God only knows what it ends up looking like. “All right, yes. I’m shagging him, but it’s not a big deal or anything. We’re friends.”  
  
Stan raises his eyebrows. “Really? Not a big deal? Because I can’t remember the last time you were actually friends with someone you shagged.”  
  
Louis gives him a proper glare for that one.  
  
“Look, I’m just, you know,” Stan says, withdrawing his arm and returning to his beer. “I don’t want to make things awkward if you’re, whatever. You just look really happy, Lou. It’s nice.”  
  
He gives Louis a shrugging smile and fades back into the party, and Louis stares after him for a moment before draining half his cup of cider in one go.  
  
The cider does the trick. He’s able to enjoy the rest of the night without analyzing what Stan said, too busy evading a lap dance from his veterinary assistant and shimmying at half of the maths department to the sounds of dubstep Bing Crosby. Somewhere off the the side Zayn is still talking to Liam, casually trying to edge them toward the mistletoe only to have all his work undone every time Liam steps politely out of the way to let somebody through and moves them backwards two feet. There’s too much to laugh at for Louis to bother worrying about anything else at the moment. He doesn’t even have a fit when Harry catches and holds his eyes across the dance floor when “All I Want For Christmas is You” comes on, shaking his hips over to Louis, singing the  _ooh, baby_  right in his ear.  
  
It’s around this time that the drunken karaoke starts up and, Jesus, it was worth sweet talking Niall into borrowing all the equipment from school just to see Harry gyrating to “Santa Baby,” all languid hips and raspy voice and hotter than it has any right to be when he’s not even being serious about it.  
  
Somewhere around 2 a.m., Niall and Zayn decide to go out onto the balcony for a smoke at the same time. Harry drags Louis outside with them despite his protests of how bollocks-freezing cold it is out there, and Liam follows them, presumably because the four of them are the only people he actually knows at this party.  
  
It’s actually kind of nice once they’re all out there, crammed into the small space of Louis’ balcony. Niall flops into one of Louis’ rickety chairs with his beer while Louis settles into the other, knees gathered up to his chin against the cold. Zayn’s leaning up against the railing, too drunk to think about posing for Liam, which looks better on him anyway, all loose limbs and hazy eyes.  
  
Harry crowds up behind Louis’ chair. “You cold?”  
  
“A bit, yeah,” Louis says through the chattering of his teeth. Next thing he knows, Harry’s leaning down and wrapping his arms around Louis’ shoulders and chest, pressing his body heat into him.  
  
“This okay?” Harry says in his ear, and Louis just blames the alcohol for the fact that all he can do is nod and lean back into him. Zayn raises his eyebrows at them, and Louis mentally wills him to go fuck himself.  
  
Louis looks around him, at Niall all sprawled out in his chair, at Zayn lighting one up, at Liam looking content on the ground with his back against the balcony door, at the lights in the distance and the snow falling down and the steam of his breath mixing with Harry’s, and it just. It feels good, the five of them.  
  
Louis is possibly too drunk.  
  
“Nice song choice, Harry,” Zayn slurs, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Be really impressed if you can get this one up there, though.” He points to Louis with his cigarette, and Louis sticks his tongue out at him.  
  
“D’you think he would?” Harry says, perking up, and no, no,  _nope_.  
  
“No, he would not,” Louis says.  
  
“It’d be brilliant, though!” Harry says, leaning back and turning his head a little to look at Louis. It’s really not fair how his eyes are sparkling in the flashing lights of Louis’ stupid hat. Once again, Louis only has himself to blame. “I never get to see you perform, only shout at other people while they do.”  
  
Louis ignores Harry, shifting his attention back to Zayn, who is much easier to resist. “Why don’t you get up there, Malik? You were born for the stage. Stripper with a heart of gold, that’s what you are.”  
  
“And a liver of iron,” Zayn says.  
  
“Bullshit,” Niall says, laughing out a cloud of smoke. “I’ve got pictures of you naked in a pond throwing up on a duck.”  
  
“Poor duck,” Liam chimes in, looking concerned. “He’s just going about doing duck things, and then all of the sudden—”  
  
“Vomit tsunami,” Louis supplies.  
  
Liam nods sagely. “Tsu-vom-i.”  
  
It’s so ridiculous and so deadpan that it startles a laugh out of all of them, filling up the balcony and echoing off the roof of the next building.  
  
“We’re keeping him,” Louis says, pointing an unsteady finger at Liam, and it’s impossible to tell who looks more pleased by this turn of events, Liam or Zayn.  
  
“If we’re keeping him, he should get a vote in whether or not you sing for us,” Harry says.  
  
“There’s not a  _vote_ ,” Louis says. “This isn’t a democracy. This is a party dictatorship, and I am the dictator.”  
  
“You’ve got one of those syllables right,” Niall says. “Liam, vote.”  
  
“Well, I mean,” Liam says, “only if he wants to.”  
  
“Oh, he wants to,” Zayn says, cutting off Louis’ protests.  
  
“He really, really does,” Niall adds, and Louis takes back every nice thing he has ever said about either of them.  
  
Liam smiles. “Then I vote yes.”  
  
“I think that makes it unanimous,” Niall says. He stubs out his cigarette on the arm of his chair and flicks the butt off the balcony. “Right, Harry?”  
  
“Unanimous,” Harry confirms.  
  
“Unfortunately this vote means nothing because I do not recognize the authority of the proletariat,” Louis says. He wonders faintly if taking too many vodka shots has made him slightly Communist. Or is it the other way around? Who was the proletariat again? Alcohol is bad.  
  
“Too bad,” Zayn says. “Bolshevik karaoke time.”  
  
It’s four against one now and Louis doesn’t stand a chance, no matter how much he tries to tell them that he is definitely too drunk for this. Harry manages to manhandle him out of his chair, and then Niall and Zayn have him under the armpits. A couple of very disorienting minutes later, Harry has dragged out his coffee table for a stage and Zayn is introducing him as “the Illustrious, Luscious Louis Tomlinson,” and then Louis is holding a microphone in front of the entire party while the first notes of “Jingle Bell Rock” flood the room.  
  
Fine. If he’s going to be publicly humiliated, he is damn well going to do it with style. He puts one hand on his hip, flips his hair, and calls up every bit of that old stage presence he hasn’t used in years.  
  
And maybe it’s just because he’s drunk, or he’s the host, or it’s his birthday, but the crowd goes  _wild_. He belts it out with as much as he’s got left in him, sashaying up and down the length of the table, free hand flailing through the air. Niall pretends to faint into Zayn’s arms when Louis blows him a kiss. Louis forgot how much he loves this, how natural it feels to stand up in front of an audience and sing. He never realised how much he’s been missing this feeling.  
  
It’s been years since Louis got up in front of anybody and sang other than demonstrating parts to his students, years since he lit up a crowd, years since he felt that high of performing. He watches Stan laughing with some of the Doncaster girls and the German teacher dancing with two of his uni friends and he lets himself soak in the energy of the crowd and the sound of the music, and it’s just a stupid Christmas song but he lets himself get carried away.  
  
The flat erupts into applause when the song is over, and Louis takes an elaborate bow, almost falling off the coffee table as he does. Harry’s there to catch him around the waist and set him on the floor, laughing so hard he’s almost in tears, and Louis wants to kiss him right then and there but he doesn’t.  
  
It seems that Louis’ performance is the dramatic climax of the party, because it’s not long after that before people start popping by to slap him on the back and tell him goodbye. The ones who’ve had less to drink or given themselves time to sober up head out to brave the snow, while the rest start gathering up their coats and calling cabs. He bids Stan farewell with a promise to return his missing trousers when he gets back to Doncaster and watches Zayn hug Liam goodbye when he gets called in to the firehouse to handle a surplus of Christmas tree catastrophes. Soon it’s down to twenty, then ten, then it’s 3 a.m. and Louis is bundling Zayn into a cab, paying the cabbie in advance and tuning out Zayn’s drunken mumbling.  
  
“Destiny,” he says for the millionth time in the last five minutes. “Christmas destiny. Destimas.”  
  
“Sleep it off, mate,” Louis says, and Zayn just smiles dreamily at him before the door shuts and the cab is off down the street.  
  
He’s swaying on his feet as he makes his way back up the snowy path to his flat. God, how long has it been since he’s done this, taken care of the drunks while half-wasted himself? University-era Louis would be ashamed.  
  
He staggers back up the stairs and into his flat, and he nearly groans out loud when he sees there’s someone else still there, wandering around the living room. The sound catches in his throat, though, when he sees that it’s Harry making his way through the flat with a bin bag, collecting trash.  
  
“You’re—hi. You’re here,” Louis manages, his tongue thick in his mouth. He leans heavily against the door. Fuck. He is never drinking anything Niall mixes ever again.  
  
“Well spotted, Lou,” Harry says with a smile. “Figured you could use some help with all of this.” He gestures to the wreckage of Louis’ flat. It’s worse than last year’s party, worse than he and Harry’s sex marathon. There appears to be red velvet cake smeared all over one of the cushions of his couch. Well, it’s either that or blood. God, please let it be cake.  
  
Louis does groan now, sliding down the door onto his welcome mat. “God, I’m going to be up all night dealing with this. And I’ve got to drive to my mum’s tomorrow.” He lets his head fall back against the door with a thud. “Why do I socialize? Why don’t I just stay in bed with my cat?”  
  
“The eternal question,” Harry says, walking over and extending a hand. Louis takes it and lets Harry haul him upright. The sudden movement has him dizzy, and he’s thankful for Harry’s steadying hands on his waist once again. “I can stay and help, don’t worry.”  
  
Louis blinks at him, and Harry just smiles and goes back to tidying up. Louis meanders blindly over to the sink and tries to start washing dishes, but turns back to Harry distractedly. “You’ve got to drive to your parents’ too, though.”  
  
Harry shrugs, pulling down some of the lights. “It’s not that long a drive, I can stay an hour or two longer.” He looks at Louis, amused. “It’s really fine, Lou.”  
  
Louis looks down into the sink in confusion, because what does he  _want_?  
  
He manages to wash a total of two glasses, his mind swimming, before he turns back to Harry. He probably shouldn’t press his luck here, but he just...does not understand. “I’m not,” he says, swallowing dryly. “I can’t fuck you tonight.”  
  
Harry lets out a short laugh that sounds a little horrified, turning away from where he’s taking down the mistletoe. He pauses before he speaks again, like he’s waiting to see if Louis was joking.  
  
“Christ, Louis, tell me how you really feel,” Harry says, apparently realising that he’s not. Louis just stares back, leaning hard on the counter. “Lou. Jesus. I know that you, that we aren’t going to have sex tonight. That’s not why I came tonight, and even if it was, you’re drunk, so.” He lets out a long breath, his face soft, and no one should be allowed to look that serious while wearing reindeer antlers. “I’m doing this ‘cause I want to, yeah?”  
  
Louis looks at him for a long time, but he doesn’t make any more sense.  
  
“You’re weird,” he says finally.  
  
Laughing, Harry throws the mistletoe at him, hitting Louis square in the chest. “You’re one to talk,” he says, and resumes cleaning.  
  
Shaking his head like a wet dog, Louis gives up on making sense of the situation and commits what brainpower he has to taking his flat from “portal to the underworld” to “general squalor.” Harry puts something soft and gentle on his iPod and they make their way from room to room in silence, improving things as they go.  
  
It feels like Harry is everywhere over the next hour, taking care of things while Louis sobers up. When Louis slips on a puddle of eggnog, Harry catches him with a laugh. When Duchess knocks over the empty bowl of cider, Harry is there with a broom to sweep up the pieces. When Louis goes back to doing dishes, Harry is behind him with a hand on his waist, passing him a glass full of water.  
  
“Don’t want to drive with a hangover,” he says, dropping his chin onto Louis’ shoulder.  
  
Louis drains the glass in a few long swallows, incredibly conscious of the way Harry’s head turns, his lips grazing slightly over his neck. “Thanks,” Louis says, “I think I’m going to be all right now, nothing like manual labor to shake off a buzz.”  
  
“Good,” Harry says, smiling against him and squeezing his hip before he moves away. “Shouldn’t take more than another half-hour before this place is in decent enough shape for you to catch a few hours of sleep.”  
  
Louis turns around, leaning against the sink and watching Harry putter around his flat happily, and does his best to strangle whatever feeling is creeping through him.  
  
“You know what?” he says suddenly. “It’s fine, I think I’m just going to go to bed.”  
  
Harry pauses, halfway through wiping down the kitchen table. “You sure? I don’t want you to miss your mum.”  
  
“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” Louis says. “I can do the small stuff when I get back.”  
  
“All right,” Harry says, fiddling with his jacket for a moment before pulling it from the back of a chair and shrugging it on. “If you’re sure.”  
  
“I’m sure,” Louis says with a helpless smile. And then, because he can’t stop himself, “I’ll walk you down to your car.”  
  
He snags his scarf and coat off the hook but doesn’t bother doing up any of his buttons before following Harry outside.  
  
The snow has slowed to a gentle fall by now, drifting onto Louis’ porch and gathering on the railings. Harry insists on going down the stairs in front of him because “alcohol plus frozen steps equals death” and he seems to think himself an adequate safety net. When they get to the bottom he pulls Louis up against him with one arm, and Louis lets him, pliant against the warmth of Harry’s side. It’s quiet outside except for the light jingling of Harry’s antlers and their own crunching footsteps in the snow.  
  
“You were really good, with the whole karaoke thing tonight,” Harry says. He bumps one hip against Louis’, and Louis stares down at their feet disappearing in and out of the snow. “I like seeing you like that.”  
  
Something in Louis’ stomach squirms. He writes it off as the after effects of the half dozen cupcakes and questionable beverages, but it makes him restless all the same. On some mad impulse he ducks out from under Harry’s arm and half-stumbles into a snowbank, plunging his hands into the snow.  
  
“Lou, what’re you—”  
  
Harry’s words are cut off by the snowball that pegs him right in the side of the head.  
  
“Yes!” Louis shouts, not caring about his neighbors and the fact that it’s almost 4 a.m. Harry is gaping at him, a laugh playing on his lips. “The Tommo strikes again!”  
  
“The only thing saving you from being shoved in a snowbank right now,” Harry tells him, shaking his hair out, “is the fact that you are drunk and I don’t think you could get back up.”  
  
“I am extremely spry in my old age,” Louis tells him, slipping ahead. “You underestimate me.”  
  
“I guess so,” Harry says.  
  
They’re at Harry’s car now. Louis is standing between Harry and the door, his body betraying the fact that he really doesn’t want Harry to go.  
  
“I’m glad you liked your cake,” Harry says. He’s smiling as he leans against Louis, gently pressing him into the side of the car.  
  
“I’m glad you came tonight,” Louis tells him, and oh, he hates how alcohol does this even when it’s fading out of his system, makes him honest and unguarded, but he can’t stop his mouth. “Thank you for staying.”  
  
Harry just smiles wider, and then he wraps the end of Louis’ scarf around one hand and pulls him in for their first kiss in two weeks.  
  
It’s as gentle as Harry’s weight against him, light enough that Louis knows Harry meant what he said about not pushing him when he’s been drinking. Harry’s lips are a little bitten by the chill, but when he parts them he tastes like peppermint and cake and his mouth is like the lights inside of Louis’ flat, soft and warm and intimate. Louis sinks his fingers into Harry’s curls, and Harry makes a noise at the cold hands against his scalp but doesn’t let go.  
  
They’ve done a fair amount of kissing by now, but Louis wouldn’t describe any of it as slow or sweet. Every time it was some pressing force, the means to an end, the warm-up act before the main event. This time is different, though. One of Harry’s hands slides up under Louis’ jumper, but there’s nothing insistent about it, just Harry trying to be closer to him. For the first time, they kiss just for the hell of it. And, God, for once, Louis just lets himself have it.  
  
Then Louis’ brain and his mouth line up long enough for him to realise that what Harry is humming into his mouth is “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and he has to break off to laugh at that, because,  _seriously_.  
  
For a moment they’re just standing there, and Harry is so close and he’s laughing and there’s snow in his eyelashes and it’s actually overwhelming how much Louis likes this person. Not just his mouth and his body but all of him, every single part, the dumb jokes and the eager hands and the sprawling smile and the easy way about him that makes Louis want to loosen his grip a little bit, the grass stains on his jeans and the way he still smells like Louis’ dish soap.  
  
“Happy birthday,” Harry says, thumbing the pattern of Louis’ scarf.  
  
“Happy Christmas,” Louis says back.  
  
“Happy Christmas,” Harry agrees.  
  
Harry gives him one last smiling kiss, and Louis finally convinces his legs to move the rest of him out of the way so Harry can slide into his car. He stands on the curb, knee-deep in snow, watching Harry drive away until his tail lights blink out around the corner.  
  
Louis isn’t going to think about it. He’s not. He’s not going to think about hands on his waist or sweet cream frosting on his tongue or the place where all the small bones in Harry’s wrist come together. He’s not going to let this spread.  
  
“No,” he says to the feeling pulling at his ribs. “Nope.” He takes the stairs one step at a time and doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t think about it.  
  
He’s dropping his coat on the floor and ready to collapse into bed when he sees the package sitting on the kitchen table. The box is thin and bit bigger than a piece of paper, and when he turns it over in his hands he can see that it’s wrapped up in pages torn out of magazines, all different bright colors and clashing patterns. He doesn’t need a card to know it’s from Harry.  
  
Oh, God.  
  
Louis’ hands fumble with the wrapping until he manages to get it all off, mind racing ahead of him to what Harry would have gotten him and wondering how he snuck it in without Louis noticing, if he stuck it under the cake box or if he’s actually Father Christmas. Underneath the wrapping is a thin, unremarkable cardboard box, and he opens one end and tilts.  
  
Out slides a nicely matted print of a photograph, and Louis’ breath goes out when he realises what it is.  
  
He remembers a rehearsal about a month ago, some cold, dry evening in November. His male lead was out sick, and he had promoted one of the boys in the chorus to understudy so that somebody could mark his place in the blocking. He was sitting a few rows back in the audience, calling out lines and taking notes in his copy of the script. Niall was working out the kinks for the lighting cues that day, and the set was still only halfway constructed. He remembers that Harry was wearing a blue shirt, but he doesn’t know how he forgot about the camera.  
  
The photograph is from that rehearsal, taken from a seat just behind Louis. The stage in the background is washed in blues, reds, pinks, yellows, beams of light pouring from all different angles, crossing over each other at random. The spotlight is off, so the bodies on the stage are almost just silhouettes in motion. There’s the whip of a skirt caught in mid-turn, a tall figure with its arms extended, two shapes bent toward each other at stage left. Behind them, the skeleton of the set makes sharp lines and broken shapes against the white backdrop.  
  
In the foreground is Louis, just a sliver of his face as seen from behind, the light catching on the top of his cheekbone and the ends of his hair. His hands are in the air in front of him, gesturing as he explains something to one of the actors, and he can see ink stains on his knuckles. He can see for the first time the way he looks when he’s directing, the set of his shoulders, the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.  
  
It’s his kids, his work, distilled into an image and made beautiful. And Harry did it.  
  
He looks down at the table because he really, really needs to look at anything that is not this picture right now, and his eyes fall on a tiny piece of paper. It must have slid out with the print without him noticing it. He can see Harry’s handwriting on it.  
  
 _Lou,  
  
So you don’t forget what you look like to the rest of us  
  
Happy birthday!!! xxx  
Haz_  
  
Louis drops into a chair.  
  
“Happy Christmas, Louis Tomlinson,” he says. “You are fucked.”

 

 

**Chapter 8.**

Zayn idly swirls the beer in his glass, distressed to see so much of it left. Beer isn’t really his drink, not for a real night out, but Niall had bought a round of pints and it would be rude not to finish. Anyway, it’s just not on to leave a drink unfinished on New Year’s.  
  
He tips the glass back and drains the pint with a grimace, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and looking around the bar. It’s a pretty good turnout, though if he’s honest most of these people are Niall’s friends, not his. He’s not complaining, though. He could have gone to another friend’s party, but from what he remembers from years past those parties always turn into pretty people scrambling for hook-ups, and he’s not really looking for that this year. Getting quietly drunk in the corner of a bar full of people who don’t actively bother him actually sounds pretty great.  
  
Of course, in a perfect world he’d be wherever Liam was, but after his ridiculous performance on Christmas Zayn isn’t sure he can face Liam for a few more weeks. God, how obvious had he been with the mistletoe? Had Liam noticed? There was no way he hadn’t noticed. Why isn’t he drunk yet?  
  
Zayn walks over to the bar and orders a vodka tonic, ignoring the bartender’s once-over. God bless Niall’s friends and their open bar. Liam is probably busy, anyway. He’s probably out doing something fun and not thinking about Zayn at all. The bartender slides his drink to him, and Zayn lifts it to his lips immediately as he walks back to his table, ignoring the napkin with the phone number on it. Liam is probably at some party with his hot firefighter friends, being hot. They’re probably dancing in a big group of sweaty, shirtless, firefighting hotness that is inaccessible to people who ineffectively hit on people at Christmas parties. Maybe they’re wearing the fireman hats. Wow, this drink is strong.  
  
Back at his table of perpetual malaise, Zayn pulls out his phone and picks Louis’ name out of his contact list. Louis is at his mum’s house, as he always is for New Year’s. God bless Louis. No one else makes him feel comparatively better about being a miserable bastard.  
  
 _w/o u here who’s gunna b my consolation midnight kiss?? aha :) xx_  
  
It only takes a few moments for Louis to text back, reassuring Zayn that he is not the saddest sack in the greater Manchester area.  
  
 _give you ten quid if you kiss niall. not kidding._  
  
Zayn throws his head back and laughs, typing out his answer.  
  
 _make it twenty and ur on :P xoxo_  
  
Maybe this night could still be fun after all.

**L**

  
  
It’s hard to keep in touch with Harry when he’s stuck inside a small house with his mum and four nosy sisters, all of whom are hellbent on figuring out what—or whom—Louis is hiding from them. He sticks to texts for the first few days before he’s forced to admit to himself that seeing Harry’s bad jokes in pixel letters just makes him miss the sound of Harry’s dumb voice saying them honey-slow in his ear. He can only call him in the middle of the night or at odd hours of the day when the girls are busy and his mum is at work, unless he actually gets in his car and drives somewhere, and Louis refuses to do that. He’s trying to keep this thing in check, and lurking in car parks to talk to Harry on the phone does not exactly fall under the heading of Rational Behavior.  
  
The snow hasn’t come to Doncaster for a few weeks, so the grass is dry enough that Louis can take Harry’s late night calls in the back garden without waking anyone up. He bundles up and drags his duvet down the stairs and lies on his back on the ground, listening to Harry ramble on and on about football and his family and which Rolling Stones album is best.  
  
“What’re you gonna do when you get back?” Louis asks one night, coat pulled tight around him as he stares up at the stars.  
  
“Wait for you to get back so I can kiss you again,” Harry says on the other end of the line, and Louis rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in the grass.  
  
He knows that it’d be easier to just leave for Manchester early since he knows that Harry will be getting back a couple of days ahead of school, but he makes himself stay in Doncaster for the full hols. He doesn’t get to see his family or his Doncaster friends as often as he’d like, and he can’t justify leaving all that to see Harry. This is where he needs to be, sandwiched in between two of his sisters on the sofa in the family living room. Their mum’s messing about in the kitchen, fixing herself another Shirley Temple, and the twins are asleep, thank God. The room gets a bit crowded when the entire Tomlinson clan tries to watch telly, even if it is a New Year’s tradition.  
  
“There’s still time to make it to the fireworks before midnight if we leave now,” Lottie says.   
  
“If you want to go, you should go,” Louis says, before taking a long sip out of the champagne bottle he’s got cradled in his lap. “I, however, am going to stay here, on this sofa, where it is comfy and there are no loud noises. They say you spend the whole year doing what you were doing at midnight, yes? Well, I plan to spend this year lazy and tipsy.”  
  
Lottie makes a grab for the bottle, but Louis has cat-like reflexes when it comes to alcohol and moves it out of her reach. “Hey now, no champagne for children,” he says.  
  
“I’m eighteen now, Louis, I’m not a child,” she says, rolling her eyes. Fizzy giggles.  
  
“Are you?” Louis asks jokingly. “Hmm, I’m going to have to write someone a strongly-worded letter about that, see if something can’t be done.” Lottie pokes him in the side, he pokes back, and by the time their mum comes back in all three of them are engaged in a no-holds-barred tickle war.  
  
Louis is attempting to explain to her that he is the victim of unchecked sisterly imperialism when his mobile goes off. When he sees who it is, he scrambles upright. “I’m sorry, it’s—I’ve got to get this, hold on,” he says, heading for the back door.  
  
“It’s five minutes to midnight, Louis!” his mum shouts after him, but he’s already on the back patio.  
  
“Hi, Hazza,” he says, sitting down on the patio swing.  
  
“Louis!” Harry shouts down the line, and Louis can tell in just those two syllables that he’s pissed off his arse. “Louis, Louis, Louis. Loo-oo-ouis. It’s almost midnight!” Louis can hear loud voices and clinking glasses.  
  
“I know, Haz,” Louis responds, rubbing his hands over his arms. He definitely should have grabbed a coat on his way outside, but it’s too late for that now. “You at a party?” he asks.  
  
“Yeah, but,” and now Harry whispers dramatically, “S’not as good as yours was, Lou, so don’t worry.” He ends the sentence with a giggle. “Your party was brilliant. You are brilliant!” He heaves a drunken sigh. “Miss you.”  
  
Before Louis can respond, or figure out how to, he hears a voice in the background.  _Who’re you talking to, Harry?_  says a woman. Harry’s response is a muffled  _It’s Louis, Gemma, piss off._  
  
“Is that your sister?” Louis asks, curious.  
  
“Yeah, d’you want to talk to her? Gemma!” he shouts, and Louis winces, holding the phone away from his ear. “Gemma! Louis wants to talk to you! I don’t know why, I’m much more interesting.” The phone passes between them, and a clear female voice comes down the line.  
  
“Hello, Louis, this is Gemma, Harry’s sister.”  
  
Louis smiles, pleased to have the chance to sneak a peek at Harry’s real life. “Hello, Gemma, very nice to meet you.”  
  
She hitches a laugh, saying, “A pleasure, I’m sure.” Louis has never seen a picture of her, but he’s imagining a woman his age with Harry’s mouth and, judging by her tone, his tendency towards mischief. “So, what have you done exactly to make my brother completely lose his head over you? Are you that good in—” she starts to ask, but suddenly the sound is muffled and Louis can barely make out the sound of shushing.  
  
“Louis?” Harry’s voice comes through. “You there? Loui-i-is?”  
  
Louis can’t help but laugh at how eager he sounds. What a friendly drunk. “Yeah, Haz, I’m here,” he says, pushing his feet against the porch so the swing starts to sway. “It’s almost midnight, you sure you want to be on the phone?”  
  
“Yes,” Harry says, with slurred resolution. “I’m sure.”  
  
“Nobody to kiss at midnight?” Louis asks, feeling reckless.  
  
Harry giggles again. “No one here is anywhere near as fit as you, so,” he says, sighing.  
  
Louis grins against the phone. “A common tragedy. Sorry if I’ve set the bar too high.”  
  
“You should be, you wanker,” Harry says with what can only be affection, and Louis is too buzzed to be even want to contain the warmth he feels curling out of his chest. He doesn’t answer for a moment, just sits gliding back and forth on the swing, knowing that Harry’s on the other end of the line.  
  
“Hazza—” he starts finally, but is interrupted by a series of loud bangs and whistles. He stands and walks to the edge of the patio, and if he leans out, he can just see the edge of some of the fireworks over the treeline. On the other end of the phone he can hear shouting and singing. Someone’s started up “Auld Lang Syne.”  
  
“Happy New Year, Hazza,” he says, watching the sky light up. “I miss you, too.”  
  
Harry lets out a whooping laugh. “Happy New Year, Lou,” he says, and hangs up.  
  
When Louis walks back into the living room, his mum and sisters all fix him with the same look, their eyebrows rising. Even Duchess is staring at him accusingly from her basket in the corner. Families are creepy.  
  
“Well, you missed midnight, so you're terrible,” Fizzy says, her arms crossed. She looks pleased about being able to tell him off, though, so she probably isn’t really upset.  
  
“Sorry,” Louis says, dragging the word out, unable to keep a smile off his face.  
  
His mum narrows her eyes, examining him, but then they fly open in shock. “Who was that on the phone?” she says in a knowing voice, and nope, this conversation is not happening.  
  
“You know, I think I’m just going to turn in,” Louis says, heading for the stairs. If he doesn’t make eye contact, maybe she’ll let it go.  
  
“Are you  _blushing_?” she says.  
  
“It’s cold out!” Louis says, taking the steps at double time.  
  
“You’re not getting out of this that easily!” she shouts at his retreating back.  
  
“Night mum, night girls,” he sing-songs back, so close to freedom.  
  
“I’ll get it out of you eventually,” she calls after him, defeated, and the sad thing is she’s probably right.  
  
As he closes the door to the bathroom, he feels his phone vibrate and pulls it out to see a picture message from Zayn. He has to zoom in and turn the phone upside down, but eventually he realises that he’s looking at a self-taken image of Zayn planting a kiss on a very surprised Niall.  
  
When he closes the picture, he sees he has two texts. He opens the one from Zayn first.  
  
 _u owe me 20 quidddddd hapyyp new years lou i loev u :DDD xxxx_  
  
Snickering, he closes it and opens the next text, which is from Niall.  
  
 _why_

✖

  
  
It’s the beginning of a new term, and Louis’ got a lot on his plate already. He put off working on lesson plans the whole holiday, still so drained from the last week of the term that he couldn’t even be arsed to look at his calendar, and now he’s got to catch up. He’ll be able to bluff his way through the first day of classes, but he really needs to sit down and figure out what the hell he’s doing, because things are going to get busy for him again soon.  
  
He’s holding auditions for the spring musical in a week, having settled on  _Grease_  this year. It’s the one he’s been saving ever since he started directing, since it’s his very favorite and he doesn’t want to waste his one chance to do it right, but for some reason he feels like this is the year. He posted flyers and handed out audition packets before the Christmas holidays to give the kids enough time to rehearse on their own, but he’s still got several loose ends to tie up before tryouts. Posting audition sign-up sheets, making copies of scripts, reserving the theatre—all of it needs to be done by the end of the week.  
  
So really, between all of that, there’s no reason for him to feel so disappointed when he gets a text from Harry on Monday morning saying that he won’t be coming around today because he’s meeting with a professor and maybe he’ll catch him after practice. Louis’ got enough happening that he should be grateful to have his free period to himself. But the fact of the matter is, he hasn’t seen Harry in over a week, and somewhere between prop furniture and snow and champagne and 2 a.m. phone calls under a blanket in the back garden, that became unacceptable. It’s all he can think about all day, the fact that they’re in the same city again and the space between them is getting smaller by the minute.  
  
Finally five o’clock rolls around and he’s done with all his work for the day, sign-up sheets posted and lesson plans tucked inside his desk drawer. He knows he could take the front exit to the carpark and never pass the football pitch. He’d get to his car faster, even. He could go home and put on the telly and spend the evening with his cat and a glass of wine, safe in his flat where nobody is making anybody feel anything. It would be so easy.  
  
So easy, but also impossible. As he locks up his classroom, he knows it’s a foregone conclusion. His feet are already carrying him toward the back exit without him ever telling them to. Rude.  
  
The team’s in their last few minutes of practice by the time Louis gets out there. Mondays, Louis’ learned by now, are just for drills, so the head coach lets Harry run practice by himself. Louis leans up against the fence and watches for a moment as Harry directs the boys up and down the pitch.  
  
He looks just how Louis remembers him, tall and slim and gorgeous and all the maddening things he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since the first time they kissed. It had been easier to put those things out of his mind when he was busy with work or frantic party planning, but the week in Doncaster, every idle moment had been torture—the memory of Harry’s lower lip dragging up his chest, the size of Harry’s hands, every detail on repeat in his head and nothing he could do about it. Even from a distance, seeing Harry in real life now feels like a not-unpleasant punch to the gut.  
  
He feels suddenly creepy, standing there thinking about Harry’s idiot lips and realising that to any passers-by he probably looks like he’s ogling the football team. Casting about desperately, he spots the stands and quickly ducks underneath them, grimacing when he realises how much dirt is going to get on his trousers as he sits down.  
  
So. This is happening. He is a grown man hiding in the dirt under the stands, waiting for his friend-with-whom-shagging-happens to get out of football practice. Okay.  
  
Louis sits quietly, stewing his own pathetic thoughts and growing increasingly panicked over the cost of getting his trousers dry cleaned as he stares at the changing room door, just visible over one of the crossbeams that are hiding him. He’s there for so long that he almost gives up and goes home, which would probably be the wisest course of action, but then the final whistle finally blows and the boys finally file into the changing room. Louis gives them enough time that even the last stragglers are gone before he emerges from his foxhole of shame and future laundry nightmares. He pauses only to dust himself off briefly and spare a thought to wonder if he’s lost complete control of his life before pulling the door open and stepping inside.  
  
Harry’s there, alone with his bag of footballs, right in front of him and real. A quick check around him confirms that they’re alone, and the look in Harry’s eyes is worth a hundred dry-cleaning bills.  
  
“Hi,” Louis says.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says, smiling.  
  
“Hi,” Louis says, smiling back.  
  
“Said that already,” Harry points out mildly. Louis doesn’t particularly care.  
  
They stand there for a minute, just the two of them alone in the changing room, smiling at each other, Louis still sporting a fine layer of dust and Harry looking like six feet of sunshine. Harry’s standing with his arms folded across his chest and his back against the lockers, and Louis feels like his bones are made of paper.  
  
“Get over here,” Harry says at last, and that’s all it takes, Louis is crossing the room in an instant.  
  
When he finally leans up and kisses Harry, it’s every bit of quiet anticipation since Christmas all ringing through him at once, lifting him up onto his toes. His shoulders pull up tight and he buries his hands in Harry’s hair and Harry’s arms wrap around his waist and it feels so  _good_  to kiss him again, like that first big breath after being underwater too long.  
  
He feels his feet leave the floor for a moment and Harry’s picking him up and spinning them around, pressing Louis’ back into the lockers. Louis lets him, lets his mouth fall open for Harry right away because if he had to go a week without this he’s damn well going to make up for it now, but Harry’s taking his time with it. He runs his hands over Louis’ chest, holding him close by the lapels of his coat, and kisses him slowly, making each slide and drag of their lips count, pulling back every few kisses so that their lips are barely brushing and then smirking when Louis has to crane his neck up into it for more. He kisses like he’s got nowhere else to be, like Louis is the only person in the world.  
  
Louis is sure that other people besides the two of them do, in fact exist. He’s sure he’ll remember some of them in a minute.  
  
He finds himself suddenly staring at the opposite wall when Harry ducks his head and starts pressing kisses all around his throat, and Louis lets his head fall back and slides one hand to the back of Harry’s neck, dipping his fingers into the little gap under the collar of his hoodie and feeling the knobs of bone there, the warmth trapped in that space. It feels good, and affectionate, and good, and Louis is almost choking on the feeling of being kissed like that when Harry suddenly drops his hands to Louis’ sides and starts tickling him.  
  
Louis splutters and laughs and flails wildly while Harry just grins down at him through red lips, and, God, Harry is a prick and Louis should not be so happy about it, but he is.  
  
“I hate you,” Louis says when Harry finally relents, and then immediately undercuts his own words by reeling Harry back in for another smiling kiss. Harry wraps his hands around Louis’ waist and spins him again, only stopping to drop down onto a bench and pull Louis into his lap. A few more melting kisses, and Louis pulls away with a contented noise.  
  
“I missed that,” Louis says.  _I missed you_ , is what he means.  
  
“Me too,” Harry says, rubbing circles with his thumb on the skin just under Louis’ sleeve. “D’you want to go get some dinner or something?”  
  
And here it is. There are two parts of Louis tied up there against Harry’s chest, two needs filling up his head. There’s the part of him that spent all day waiting for this, that goes all jellyfish when Harry looks at him like that and wants to do whatever it takes to make him do it all the time, and then there’s that persistent beat in the hardest part of his heart that says  _too close, too big, too much_. He knows which one needs to win.  
  
“Or,” Louis says, leaning up and kissing him again. “There’s food at my flat.”  
  
Louis is lucky that Harry’s probably as horny as he is, because he doesn’t press the issue, just smiles and gives his arse a light squeeze. “All right.”  
  
Harry follows Louis back to his flat in his own car, and Louis can hardly wait until the front door is shut behind them before getting his hands on Harry again. They stumble across the flat until they fall onto Louis’ bed, laughing at themselves. When Louis leans down and kisses the side of Harry’s neck, Harry practically purrs into it, and Louis can feel his pulse pick up under his lips. He feels drunk and reckless and powerful, all because of the boy in his bed.  
  
Their first orgasms come quick, rubbing against each other half-naked and too eager to make it last. There’s plenty of night left, though, and in between cheese on toast and casual touches and Louis chasing Duchess out of the room they have plenty of time to lazily suck each other off in the sweaty sheets, leaving fingertip bruises on each other’s thighs.  
  
It goes on like that for the next week and a half, Harry following Louis back to his flat or meeting him there later in the evening, sometimes with a bag of takeaway, sometimes with some sort of treat for Duchess as a peace offering. It must work, because Louis sees her sit in Harry’s lap at least three times, which is more than she’s ever liked anyone who isn’t him, much less someone who’s kicked her out of Louis’ room as many times as Harry has.  
  
Not that they’re just in Louis’ room. The entire flat has been christened within the week, and suddenly Louis can’t look at a single corner or piece of furniture without memories of skin and mouths and pressing fingers. He’s reminded of someone he once slept with who said that only penetration counted as “real” sex, and he pities him retroactively. He and Harry haven’t even done that yet, but he’s never felt this well-fucked in his life.  
  
It’s nice. It’s more than nice, it’s comfortable and exciting, and Harry, bless him, seems to know not to push it. He doesn’t ever stay over, always managing to clamber out of bed and into his car. After Louis shoots down a few suggestions of other activities—the cinema, dinner, some sort of art exhibit—Harry stops asking. He seems content with this, coming over to have sex and “hang out,” as he always puts it. He doesn’t ask any tough questions and Louis is very, very glad.  
  
It’s good that things with Harry are easy, because Louis has to manage  _Grease_  auditions, which is no small task.  _Much Ado_  auditions hadn’t been that bad, but this is a musical, and musicals are a whole different species. It’s a three step process just for the first round of auditions on Saturday—choreography then singing then acting—and then Sunday is going to be a day of call-backs and headaches and wondering how in the hell he gets this done every go-round. It’s the same every time.  
  
He’s got a serious problem this time, though, because going by the audition sign-up sheet, there are simply just not enough boys to fill out the chorus. He needs at least half a dozen more, or else all of the choreography is going to be uneven because half of the girls won’t have dance partners and the harmonies are going to sound off because there aren’t enough bass voices to round them out.  
  
He mentions this to Harry two days before auditions. Well, not so much mentions it as moans it from the floor of his living room while Harry is going through a roll of photographs on his laptop and Louis is lamenting the state of his professional life.  
  
“I could try talking to the team about it,” Harry offers. “Maybe some of them would be willing to try out.”  
  
“Right, because the football team is exactly where all the budding thespians go,” Louis deadpans.  
  
“You never know,” Harry says, poking Louis in the side with his toe. “Lots of footwork in football. And if I recall correctly, a certain drama teacher I know isn’t too bad with a football himself.”  
  
Louis grins in spite of himself at that, and Harry winks and laughs, and Louis sort of forgets about it. He seriously doubts there’s any way any of the footy lads can be persuaded to audition for a musical, so it’s not like it matters. The thought never really crosses his mind, and he tells Harry he absolutely cannot see him until auditions are over because he needs to focus on getting his job done, so there’s nothing to remind him about it.  
  
That is, until the doors of the theatre swing open five minutes before his choreographer is supposed to start teaching the kids their audition routine and a gaggle of boys comes tromping in. Louis stares, dumbfounded, as they make their way down the aisle to the little table he’s set up in front of the stage, laughing and ribbing each other along the way. He’s never had a single one of them in any of his classes, but he recognizes them all. He’s been to too many of Harry’s games not to.  
  
“Morning, Mr. Tomlinson,” the one in the front says as they draw even with his table. He’s got red hair and Louis knows him immediately. His name is Mike Kendall.  
  
“Hello,” Louis says. He’s aware that he’s probably looking at this poor boy like he’s got about nine heads, but he’s still in shock. “Can I help you?”  
  
“Yeah, we’re here for auditions,” Mike says, pulling a folded up sheet of paper out of his back pocket. He unfolds it and hands it to Louis, and Louis finds himself staring at a wrinkled audition sheet with the name  _Kendall_ _, Michael David_  written at the top. “Sorry we haven’t signed up for times or anything, it was all kind of last minute. Can we still try out?”  
  
 _Yes, please, oh god don’t leave please we need you_ , Louis thinks but does not say.  
  
“I could probably fit you lads in somewhere,” Louis tells him, and Mike smiles. He looks over Mike’s shoulder at the rest of the boys, who don’t look quite as amicable about the whole situation but seem overall willing to participate. “Have the rest of you got your forms?”  
  
Louis collects their paperwork and sends them off to choreography, still in disbelief of what just happened. He texts Harry as soon as they’re gone,  _what did you do, blackmail them????_  
  
 _just told them what a great director you are and how fun it would be :) xxx_  Harry’s reply says.  
  
 _pull the other one_ , Louis texts back.  
  
 _also I promised them I wouldn’t make them run suicide drills until after the play was over ;) xx_  
  
The rush of affection Louis feels in his chest makes him want to throw his damn phone at the wall, but he can’t, because he can’t afford a new one, so he just texts Harry back,  _I owe you x_ , and shoves his phone back in his jeans. He’s got an audition to run.  
  
All in all, it ends up being a bit of a mess like it usually is, but it’s not bad and his two-day stress migraine is almost bearable. He’s got a bit of really strong talent this year, and even Harry’s boys aren’t completely hopeless. He ends up casting Stuart Standhill as Danny, not because he favours him but because he’s honestly the best for the part. He can sing, he can dance, he can turn his camp tendencies on or off whenever he needs to, and Louis knows he can trust him to carry a show this big. And okay, maybe if pressed he’d admit that part of him hopes that this role will do for Stuart what it did for him when he was in high school, but he's still the most qualified.  
  
Sunday night, when it’s all said and done, he texts Harry to come over. It’s been a long weekend, and he could really use a bottle of wine and a nice, slow fuck right about now.  
  
Harry shows up with a bottle of red in hand and lips bitten bright pink by the cold. Louis pops the cork, and they spend an hour kissing on Louis’ couch and passing the bottle back and forth, getting lazily drunk off of Tesco's wine and each other. Louis feels the stress and tension finally easing out of his body, and he gets a little looser with his kisses, lets his fingers trace over Harry’s cheekbones when they kiss, a little sweeter than he usually lets himself be. He figures Harry’s earned it.  
  
“Thank you,” he says, pushing Harry’s hair back off his forehead to plant a kiss there. “For getting the boys to audition. I don’t know what I would’ve done.”  
  
“Anything I can do to help,” Harry says, smiling.  
  
“Yeah,” Louis says, reaching for his belt buckle, “I know.”  
  
“I was really just trying to get into your trousers, though,” Harry says, getting one of his hands down there to help Louis along.  
  
“How very dare you,” Louis says. He tugs Harry’s trousers open and slides his hand inside. “What kind of boy do you think I am?”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to retort, but then Louis’ hand is around his cock and that’s the end of that.


	2. Chapter 2

 

**Chapter 9.**

  
“So I was thinking,” Harry says, lying in Louis’ bed on a Tuesday night.  
  
“Hmm?” Louis responds, already slipping into a post-coital coma on his side of the bed.  
  
Harry shifts, turning on his side to look at Louis. In a few minutes, he’ll sit up and start pulling his clothes back on, getting ready to drive back to his flat so that he can make it to class in the morning. For now, though, he’s here, and his hair is falling in his eyes. Sleepily, Louis wants to reach out and touch it.  
  
“Every time we’ve… you know. Hung out,” Harry says, smirking slightly. “It’s been here, at yours.”  
  
“S’true,” Louis murmurs, his hand sliding across the bed of its own accord and grazing Harry’s forearm.  
  
“D’you think,” Harry says, pausing to yawn. “This weekend, d’you want to come over to mine?” His fingers curl around Louis’ wrist. “I’ll make you dinner,” he says with a smile.  
  
“Yeah?” Louis says, his eyes drifting closed. “Okay. That sounds nice.”  
  
“Okay,” he hears Harry whisper softly. “Okay.”  
  
Harry’s gone when he wakes up, but there’s a Post-It left on the pillow with a message scrawled hastily.  
  
 _Early class, sorry :( dinner Friday, 8 PM? xx Hazza_  
  
Louis spends his morning routine wondering when exactly they started apologizing for being apart.  
  
When he gets into his car, he pulls the door closed and sits for a moment, motionless, in the driver’s seat. Then, moving quickly as if he’s on a deadline, he pulls out his phone and sends Harry a text.  
  
 _ur_ _on for friday :)_  
  
He stares at the phone briefly, then tosses it into the passenger seat and puts the car in drive. It's just dinner. They eat dinner together all the time, and it doesn't mean anything. A change of venue doesn't change that. Who decided that eating food at the same time and place as another human was supposed to be significant, anyway? Surely mankind has evolved beyond that as a species by now. Right. Just another casual evening with the friend that he's sleeping with, with the added bonus of free food. Sounds like fun.   
  
At lunch, Harry breaks into a grin when Louis walks into the lounge, pulling him off to the side while Zayn and Niall roll their eyes.  
  
“Hi,” he says, thumbing over Louis’ wrist. They’ve made a no-kissing-during-school-hours rule, but that doesn’t mean they can keep their hands to themselves. “So I can’t come over tonight. Or tomorrow night. I’ve got a presentation on Friday that I really, really need to ace.”  
  
“That’s all right,” Louis says. “I’m massively behind on marking anyway, I could use the time to catch up."  
  
Harry smiles ruefully at him. “Sorry about that.”  
  
“Are not,” Louis says primly, poking at Harry’s hip with his free hand.  
  
“Oi!” Niall says from the table. “Hands above the waist!” Louis sticks his tongue out at him, but removes his hand all the same.  
  
“I’m excited for Friday,” Harry says softly. “It’s—my flat’s not much, but I promise I can cook, at least.” He looks nervous. Louis wants to pinch his cheeks and then sleep with him.  
  
“I’m sure I’ll love everything,” he says. He opens his mouth to say more, but is interrupted by his friends being twats.  
  
“Oh, Zayn, whisper sweet nothings to me, please!” Niall says, laying his head on Zayn’s shoulder.  
  
“Only if we can be as disgusting about it as possible, preferably with other people in the room, my dear,” Zayn says, stroking at Niall’s face. “Especially if it’s while people are trying to eat.”  
  
Harry and Louis both laugh, and they go to sit down to eat. Louis bites into an apple and tries not to think about whether eating dinner at Harry’s counts as anything particularly romantic or date-like. Because it doesn't. Right?  
  
He hadn’t been kidding about being behind on marking, and the rest of the week passes in a blur of thesis statements and topic sentences. Soon enough it’s Friday night, and he finds himself on the way to Harry’s house, hair coiffed and trousers recently ironed. Not that anything unusual is happening. They’re just going to hang out, like normal, but in another place. Definitely not a big deal.  
  
Louis times it perfectly, pulling his car to a stop in front of Harry’s at exactly 8 o'clock. He’ll reach the door a few minutes late, but not so late as to be rude. He’s got this down to an art. He grabs the bottle of wine that’s in the backseat and slides out of the car, making sure it’s locked before he sets off across the dimly lit car park. Harry’s neighborhood looks a bit dodgy after dark, and Louis is reminded of what it’s like to live on a student budget.  
  
The lift is a bit creaky, but he makes it to Harry’s floor in one piece. When he knocks on the door, he hears a muffled “Come in!”  
  
He turns the doorknob, finds it unlocked, and is all set to lecture Harry about safety when he walks in, but then. Well.  
  
The flat is full of soft music, emanating from an iPod deck on the kitchen counter. Harry’s at the stove with at least three different pots and pans on the burners, steam making his curls even more unruly than usual as he leans over to stir them. The kitchen is surprisingly clean, though Louis supposes there isn’t really room for mess—Harry wasn’t kidding about the place being the size of a postage stamp.  
  
Pulling off an oven mitt, Harry turns around with a smile, and Jesus Christ in heaven, he’s wearing an apron. He’s also wearing a snug black button-up with the sleeves rolled back, though, so Louis gets distracted from the apron pretty quickly. “Hi,” Harry says, crossing the kitchen in two strides. He takes the wine from Louis with one hand and pulls him into a kiss with the other.  
  
“Hi,” Louis says, breaking the kiss. “Didn’t realise this was going to be such a production,” he says, nodding at the apron.  
  
Harry quirks one eyebrow upwards. “I don’t do anything by halves,” he says mock-seriously.  
  
“Fair enough,” Louis says, pulling back to take a peek at the food. “That smells delicious, what is it?”  
  
“Tilapia on risotto with a lemon caper sauce," Harry says, as if that's a normal sentence. "But it's not ready yet, so get away. He shoos Louis out of the kitchen, though Louis isn’t quite sure what does or doesn’t qualify as “in the kitchen” when the whole flat is basically just one big room. “Actually,” Harry says, handing him back the wine along with a corkscrew. “You open that up while I finish up in here.”  
  
Louis starts uncorking the wine and takes his chance to wander around the flat. There’s not much to wander around, but Louis is fascinated. One corner of the studio is partitioned off by a wooden screen, and he assumes Harry’s bed is behind it, but it’s the rest of the flat he’s more interested in. The space itself is fairly sparsely decorated, with one armchair, one rug, and one set of table and chairs as the only furniture. All three are fairly good quality, the table solid wood, but Louis can tell they’re second- or third-hand, can imagine Harry finding them on the pavement and lugging them home excitedly.  
  
He’s been listening idly to the music as he moseys about, and thinks he recognizes it. “Is this the same bloke we were listening to at Christmas?” he asks.  
  
Harry breaks into a broad grin. “Yeah, same guy, I’m surprised you remember.” Louis just nods and goes back to his explorations.  
  
The furnishings may be Spartan, but the flat feels anything but bare on account of the walls. Almost every available inch is covered, giving the room the air of a combination between a magpie’s nest and a serial killer’s den. Louis is into it. Wall hangings, newspaper clippings, and prints of paintings all have their place, but the most real estate is taken up by photographs, photos of buildings, of landscapes, of animals, of landmarks, but mostly photos of people, photos of faces. Louis doesn’t know if these are all friends of Harry’s, or if some are just candids snapped of strangers, but either way he’s overwhelmed by the idea that Harry has seen this many people and wanted to keep them.  
  
He backs up to the center of the room and turns in a slow circle, taking all of it in. Even the windows are covered, with what look like collections of scarves and beaded shawls and one medium-sized Union Jack in the place of normal curtains. Louis feels like he’s in a fishbowl of Harry’s entire life, and keeps waiting for a feeling of suffocation that never comes.  
  
“Where did you get all this stuff?” Louis asks, his eyes running over one wall. In a brief skim he spots pictures of a pair of redheaded twins, the Golden Gate Bridge, and a young woman who can only be Gemma, looking exactly as he imagined her with pink streaks in her hair. He looks to the left and sees a print of a Turner painting, a small tapestry of a dragon, and a constellation of paper snowflakes. He looks up and sees that there’s a string of multi-colored Christmas lights bordering the ceiling, blinking merrily. God, he’s having dinner inside Harry’s brain.  
  
One picture catches his eye, pinned up next to the one of Gemma. He’s never seen it before, but he still recognizes it immediately. He and Harry are standing with Niall and Zayn in front of a Ferris wheel. Zayn looks despondent, Niall looks like he just had in orgy in a fry cooker, Louis is obscured by a giant bear, and there, there is Harry, grinning blissfully at tiny hidden photograph Louis, his head turned in profile away from the camera. Louis wants to tear it off the wall, fold it up, put it in his wallet, and only look at it when he’s very, very sad.  
  
“Wherever I go, I tend to just pick stuff up, and usually I just never throw it out,” Harry says, finishing up his elaborate plating. There's garnish. Louis may never recover from this. “I like being surrounded by memories. And, I don’t know, I’d feel guilty if I got rid of it now.” He brings the plates over to the table, going back to the kitchen for wine glasses.  
  
Louis smiles at his retreating back. “I’m surprised you’re not surrounded by stray cats you’ve taken in,” he says, “Or, I don’t know, followed around by ducklings. You’re a Disney princess, Harry Styles.” Returning with the glasses, Harry gives an exaggerated curtsy.  
  
“Have you actually not opened that yet?” Harry asks, gesturing towards the bottle of wine in Louis’ hands. Louis looks down, slightly bewildered to see it there.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, uncorking it with a  _pop_ , “Got distracted.”  
  
“Ah yes, you’re so easily  _distracted_ ,” Harry says with a sly grin, taking the bottle from him and filling both their glasses. Louis flips him a V and takes his glass, stifling a smile in response to Harry’s laugh.  
  
They sit down to eat what turns out to be a truly delicious meal, and every worry that Louis had about this night slinks away unnoticed as he looks at Harry across the table. As they eat, they lapse in and out of conversation, but the words are easy and the silences comfortable. Louis feels fluid and warm, more so than is justified by his single glass of wine. He knows this feeling, has felt it before, but can’t quite put a name to it.  
  
“So,” Harry says, looking at Louis’ empty plate, “I take it you enjoyed the food?” He takes a drink, and Louis finds himself staring, caught up in the movement of the tendons in his wrist, following the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows the wine.  
  
Louis wants to give a sarcastic answer, but can’t quite bring himself to. “Yeah, they were incredible. I am officially impressed.”  
  
Harry beams at him. “Yeah, well, I’ll be honest, they’re my best dish, so it’s always a safe choice when I’m looking to impress.”  
  
Ah, yes. There’s the word Louis was looking for.  _Safe_.  
  
He raises his glass and drains it dry in a single swallow before standing and walking around the table.  
  
“What—” is all Harry can manage, pushing his chair back from the table, before Louis is sliding into his lap and kissing him insistently. He swallows the rest of Harry’s question, his hands gripping his shoulders tightly. Harry may have been caught off-guard, but he’s a quick study, gripping Louis’ arse and hauling him in closer. Louis slips one hand around behind Harry’s neck and under his shirt collar, spreading his fingers to touch as much skin as possible. Harry makes a soft sound and breaks away from the kiss, breathing heavily.  
  
“Jesus, Lou,” he says with a small laugh, pulling back to search Louis’ face. “If you’ve got a risotto fetish or something, just tell me. I’ll find a way to make it work.”  
  
Louis does his best to wipe the grin off his face and leans back in, stealing a quick kiss. “If you expect me,” another kiss, “to look at you across this table all night,” another, “and not want you,” another, this one lingering, “you’re even stupider than your Christmas lights.”  
  
Harry nuzzles into Louis’ neck. “You like the Christmas lights.” He slides a hand up the back of Louis’ jumper. The breadth of it nearly covers the width of Louis’ back, and Louis’ breath catches.  
  
“Yeah, I do,” Louis says, pulling Harry back up into a kiss, and this one neither of them breaks.  
  
He’s never been a slow-moving kind of guy, but Louis can’t help but savor this, enjoy every sweep of Harry’s tongue into his mouth, every sound Harry makes when Louis tugs on his hair. Harry seems quite content himself, with one hand on Louis’ back and the other roaming the rest of him, mapping his thigh, his waist, his cheek. Louis thinks he could stay here forever, clinging to Harry on a rickety wooden chair, if Harry promised never to stop touching him like this.  
  
It doesn’t take long for him to want more, though. They’ve fallen into a sort of rhythm, Louis grinding down against Harry and Harry pushing back languidly, holding him close. Louis can tell that Harry is hard, can feel it every time Harry pushes against him, and you know what, he loves kissing as much as the next guy, but he wants  _that_.  
  
Sucking on Harry’s tongue, Louis moves his fingers to his shirtfront, making quick work of the buttons. He starts to push it off his shoulders but gives up, settling for letting his hands slide down Harry’s chest. God, is it normal for someone to have this much skin? To be so warm? Louis can’t remember ever feeling hungry for someone like this. Harry’s got to be a special case. Harry makes him wish he had extra hands.  
  
Louis scratches his nails lightly across Harry’s abdomen and relishes the feel of his muscles tightening up, the way his entire torso shivers. He makes a pleased sound into Harry’s mouth that turns into a surprised squeak when he finds himself suddenly in the air. Harry’s slid his hands under Louis’ thighs and  _lifted_ , and Louis locks his legs behind Harry’s back automatically, throwing his arms around Harry’s neck. He hears Harry’s chair clatter to the floor behind them. Harry walks a total of three, maybe four steps, and Louis’ back hits a wall.  
  
Harry’s hands are gentle as he holds Louis in place, but his mouth is bruising. Louis is in sensory overload, hyperaware of Harry surrounding him and the feel of the photographs on the wall behind him scratching his neck. His mind flashes to the tickle of grass and a disappearing sky, and he bites down on Harry’s lip. Harry groans, shifting them slightly to the right, and Louis can feel photos tearing away from the wall.  
  
“Hazza—” he says, “your, the—” is all he can manage, his vocabulary completely out of reach.  
  
“Don’t care,” Harry says, mouthing at the soft underside of Louis’ jaw, and Louis’ eyes flutter closed. His hips work helplessly, but the position makes it difficult and he can’t get any purchase. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy being so enveloped by Harry, but he wants more, wants to be able to touch as much of him as he likes.  
  
He pulls lightly on Harry’s hair. “Harry,” he says weakly. Harry responds by pressing a sucking kiss to the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “Haz,” he tries again, and this time Harry looks up, carefully settling Louis’ feet back on the ground. Louis is thankful for the wall behind him as he regains his surefootedness.  
  
“What is it, Lou?” Harry murmurs, his hands coming to rest on Louis’ waist. His mouth is shining, and Louis can see the raised red tracks on his stomach where he scratched him. He loves it, loves seeing his own signature all over Harry.  
  
“I want—” he starts, but can’t find the words, can’t put what he’s thinking into any sentence that he can imagine saying out loud.  
  
“Louis, please,” Harry says, sounding strangled. “There’s nothing—whatever you want, Lou, anything.” He doesn’t seem to realise he’s pressing his hips into Louis’, and God, that is really not helping him be coherent.  
  
Louis musters up what courage he has and forces out the words. “I want—I know we haven’t done this yet, but, God, Harry, I want, I want to be inside of you,” he forces out in one stammering breath. “Please.”  
  
He’s half-cringing at himself, but Harry isn’t. Harry’s mouth has dropped open ever so slightly, and he’s nodding powerlessly. “Yes, I—” he swallows, “I want that too, God, Lou, I want that, I want that,” and then he’s kissing Louis again, like he’s lost the use of words, and they have that in common at least.  
  
Harry lifts Louis up again, and this time they’re moving to the screened-off section of the studio, and when Louis is set down it’s on a mattress on the floor. He looks around and then raises his eyebrows at Harry. “Cosy,” he says. “At least there are sheets on it.”  
  
“Shut up,” Harry says, finally shucking the shirt from his shoulders. “Could be worse, I could have a cat that likes to come into the room and  _watch_.”  
  
“That happened  _one time—_ ” Louis protests, but he’s cut off with a kiss, Harry leaning over him. His hands slip under Louis’ jumper again, but this time they keep moving, and Louis breaks off the kiss to let him pull it over his head. Fuck, Louis must have too many nerve endings for a normal human, because the feeling of Harry’s bare chest against his makes him feel like he’s going to burst into flames.  
  
The sensation vanishes soon enough, though, because Harry is moving down Louis’ body and undoing his trousers, pulling them and his pants down his thighs in one motion. Louis’ cock bobs free, more than half-hard, and he has half a moment to appreciate the cat’s-got-the-canary look on Harry’s face before he’s enveloped in plush, wet heat and his head slams back against the mattress.  
  
Harry must have gone down on him half a dozen times by now, but Louis still hasn’t gotten used to the sheer enthusiasm of it, the way his fingers dig into Louis’ hips and move him exactly where he wants him. Harry’s eyes are closed tightly, focused on the feel of it, and Louis wonders if he’d make the same face when Louis fucked him. That thought brings him suddenly back to reality, and he tugs on Harry’s hair, pulling him off with a sound that downright indecent.  
  
“No—” he starts, but then backtracks at Harry’s arched eyebrows, “I mean yes, God, yes, but this, this isn’t how I want to come tonight and, just, come up here,” he says, motioning Harry up the bed. Harry makes a show of weariness as he crawls toward him, but he quickly turns to surprised laughter when Louis flips him over.  
  
Harry lies back and watches as Louis undoes his trousers and pulls them off, followed by his briefs, deigning to lift his hips at the appropriate times. Louis toes off his shoes and kicks off his own trousers and pants, leaving the two of them naked on the bed.  
  
And God, Louis knows Harry is beautiful, has known it since the second he saw him for the first time, but it’s still striking sometimes. This is one of those times, Harry on his back in the soft light of his flat, looking up at Louis like he deserves any of this.  
  
“Like what you see?” Harry says, waggling his eyebrows, and fine, maybe “beautiful” isn’t the word, maybe the word is “goober.”  
  
Louis snorts and grabs Harry’s cock, which shuts him up effectively. “Where do you keep the lube in this establishment?” he asks imperiously.  
  
Harry reaches up behind him and under the pillow, pulling out a bottle of lube and a few condoms, which he tosses down to Louis. “Do you keep that there all the time, or did you just think I was a sure thing?” Louis asks, leaving the condoms to the side and cracking open the lube.  
  
“No comment, “ Harry replies, whining a bit as Louis lets go of him to slick up two of his fingers. Louis taps the inside of his leg and he spreads them accordingly, letting Louis settle in between.  
  
Louis slides his fingers behind Harry’s balls, gliding back until he finds what he’s looking for. When he slides his fingers over it, Harry hisses, his hand moving to touch himself. Louis intercepts Harry’s hand, bringing it to his lips and sucking two of his fingers into his mouth, and Harry gasps. In that moment of relaxation, Louis makes the first breach, slipping one finger inside. He works it in and out carefully, licking at Harry’s fingers in time, and watching Harry’s other hand clench and pull at the sheets.  
  
“Fuck, Lou, you’ve got to—you’ve got to give me more than that,” Harry says, his breath harsh. Louis lets his fingers fall from his mouth, but covers Harry’s hand with his own to hold it down.  
  
“Is that so?” he says, and slips the second finger inside. He can see the effect it has, can see Harry’s dick twitch in response, and knows he must want to touch himself, but Harry’s free hand stays twisted in the sheets and he knows it’s because Harry’s realised Louis wants it that way.  
  
Louis spreads his fingers slightly, starting to open Harry up, and watches the shaky rise and fall of his ribcage. He can see every hitched breath exposed there, every bitten-off gasp. Harry looks at him with heavy-lidded eyes, waiting for Louis’ next move, and spreads his legs wider. Louis knows it’s a ploy for more, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t fall for it.  
  
He stops scissoring his fingers and pushes them in deep, sliding in past the second knuckle. Crooking them, he starts drawing them back out, and  _there_. Harry’s hips push jerkily back against his fingers, spasms running through his thighs, and his face turns to the side, pressing into the bed. “Fuck, Lou,” he says, his eyes closed tightly now. “Again.” His hand opens under Louis’ and laces their fingers together.  
  
Louis moves closer, settled on his knees between Harry’s outspread legs, one hand twined with Harry’s and one hand working inside him. He repeats his earlier movement, dragging his fingers across the same spot, and watches rapt as the muscles in Harry’s torso flutter and his free hand goes white-knuckled in the bedclothes. Harry’s so hard, God, he’s leaking against his own stomach. Louis feels an echoing ache just looking at him, but he can’t do anything about his own hard-on with both his hands otherwise occupied.  
  
He picks up a rhythm, his fingers moving back and forth smoothly, and Harry’s right there with him, his hips rocking to meet Louis’ every movement. Louis can tell he’s hitting that spot in Harry every time by the soft, desperate whine that starts coming from him when he exhales. Louis doesn’t think Harry even knows he’s making a sound, too caught up in pursuing whatever sensation he’s feeling, whatever Louis’ giving him.  
  
Harry’s eyes slip open, staring Louis down. “Louis,” he says, his voice tight, “Please, I can take more. Please.” Louis’ fingers glide across that spot again on the last word, turning it into a stifled shout.  
  
“Hmm,” Louis says, considering the spectacle that Harry presents. “No.”  
  
“Fuck,” Harry practically spits, pushing down hard against Louis’ fingers. “I do not know what I see in you, Jesus,” he says, panting, but there’s the shadow of a grin on his face. Louis smiles back, and twists in a third finger without warning.  
  
“ _Christ_ ,” Harry cries, his back arching off the mattress. His arms jerk, and his tight grip on Louis’ hand nearly pulls Louis off-balance. He slides back into the same rhythm as before, transfixed by the state Harry is in, covered in a sheen of sweat, the flush that Louis has seen so often in his cheeks having crept all the way down his chest. It’s darkest on his cock, which lies wet and full against his stomach. Suddenly, intimately, he feels like he can understand the impulse behind Harry’s need to photograph everything. He wants a record of this, wants to have evidence of how Harry looked while Louis took him apart, how much he loved it.  
  
Louis doesn’t want to stop teasing Harry, but that desire isn’t strong enough to keep him from touching him as much as he possibly can. He bends over, sliding his knees back, and presses his mouth to the hollow of Harry’s hip in a wet kiss before sinking in his teeth. Harry lets out a low groan, his left leg drawing up over Louis’ shoulder. Louis soothes the bitemark with the flat of his tongue, steadily ignoring the feel of Harry’s cock brushing against the side of his face and neck.  
  
He looks up along the length of Harry’s body, meeting his eyes, his fingers still working inside him. “Tell me,” he says, surprised at the hoarseness of his own voice, “Tell me what you’re feeling.”  
  
Harry draws in a gasping breath but doesn’t break eye contact. “God, Lou,” he says, squeezing hard with the hand Louis still has trapped against his. “You feel—fuck, you make me feel so good, this feels so good, please—”  
  
Louis sucks hard on the bitemark again. “Please what,” he says, breathless.  
  
“Please,” Harry says in a ruined voice. “Please,” and Louis has to bury his face against Harry’s hip in the face of his open want.  
  
“Yeah, okay,” he says, pressing one last kiss to the bruise forming where he bit Harry.  
  
He pulls his fingers out gently and lets go of Harry’s hand. Harry makes an unhappy sound at the loss, sliding his leg off Louis’ shoulder. Louis shushes him and reaches for the condoms, still on the bed where he left them. His fingers are still slick, though, and he fumbles with the package, unable to tear it open.  
  
“Here,” Harry says, sitting up slightly. He reaches out, and Louis hands him the foil square. With his clean hands, Harry tears the package open. He slips the condom out, and then reaches down between his legs, grabbing Louis by the base. The contact is a shock; so focused on Harry, Louis hadn’t given much thought to his own state. He does his best to keep his composure as Harry places the condom over the tip, and then unrolls it in a single slick slide of his fist. Even through the latex, the sudden sensation has Louis grasping at Harry’s shoulder, looking for balance.  
  
Harry turns his head to nip lightly at Louis’ arm, and then looks up at him with a smile. “I’d tell you to be gentle with me,” he says, wide-eyed with false innocence, “But I think you’d take me seriously.”  
  
Louis knows a challenge when he sees one, and pushes Harry on his back, laughing. He plants his hands firmly on either side of Harry’s head, looming above him. “One of us has to,” he says, leaning in to kiss him, and God, the last time they kissed must have been only a few minutes ago, but somehow Louis has managed to miss it already.  
  
He makes himself pull away and sits back, pulling one of the pillows with him. He pushes at Harry, getting him to lift his hips, and slips the pillow underneath. “What a gentleman,” Harry murmurs as Louis grabs the lube and slicks himself up one last time.  
  
“If you say so,” Louis says, smiling, and lines himself up. He looks at Harry carefully, and has his answer when Harry’s legs lock behind him.  
  
He pushes in slow, watching Harry’s face and holding fast to his hips. It’s almost too much, the feel of Harry tight around him and the look on his face, eyes closed and teeth biting down on his lower lip. Louis is almost halfway inside when Harry lets out a broken noise.  
  
Louis freezes. “Okay?” he asks, his thumb stroking over Harry’s hipbone.  
  
“Better than,” Harry says, his eyes still closed. “Keep going.”  
  
“Good,” Louis says, and reaches out to wrap a hand around Harry’s cock as he pushes the rest of the way inside.  
  
Harry’s eyes fly open at that, ribcage heaving. Louis keeps stroking him, twisting at the end the way he’s learned Harry likes, and pulls out slightly, his own breath coming short at the hot drag of it. He wants to wind Harry up some more, wants to bring him to the edge, because he knows he won’t be able to last long like this.  
  
It seems that Harry has other plans, though. He bats Louis’ hand away from him and reaches up to Louis’ shoulders, pulling him down into a kiss that’s all teeth and tongues. Harry’s arms twine around Louis’ neck and his legs tighten around his waist, pulling Louis in deep.  
  
Wrapped up in Harry, Louis has to break the kiss and take a couple of deep gasping breaths. He’s braced above Harry, but his arms are shaking, and he drops down onto his forearms and buries his face in Harry’s neck. He tries to regroup, but it’s difficult to focus when there’s so much of Harry everywhere. Louis noses up under his jaw, pressing light kisses to the skin there. Harry sighs happily, his hands dragging down Louis’ back in a soothing motion.  
  
Louis pulls himself together, lifting his head to slot his lips over Harry’s again, and works to find the rhythm his hand had made earlier. As his thrusts pick up speed, Harry’s fingers dig into his back, and Louis starts swallowing the small noises that escape him. He can feel the head of Harry’s cock rubbing wetly against his stomach, and the idea that this is working, that he gets to feel this good and make Harry feel good at the same time, nearly undoes him.  
  
It’s Harry who breaks the kiss this time, his head falling back. “Fuck, Lou, you’re going to kill me if you keep this up,” he says, voice rasping. Louis shifts one of his hands and runs a thumb down the line of Harry’s throat mindlessly.  
  
“If it’s any comfort,” he says, hissing as his thrust drives Harry further into the mattress, “I’m not sure I can. Keep it up, that is.”  
  
Harry just grins shakily, his nails scratching up Louis’ back. “Oh, you mean this,” he says, tightening around Louis, “Is more than you can handle?” Louis lets out a noise that he’ll find time to be embarrassed about later and mouths at Harry’s jaw.  
  
“Jesus, Hazza, I’m going to come if you do that,” he half-whispers. He pulls out slightly before pushing back in, living for the way it makes Harry’s eyes roll back.  
  
“So come,” Harry says.  
  
Louis squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head. “No, I can go longer.”  
  
“Lou.” Harry is insistent. “D’you want me—I’m going to tell you what I’m feeling, like before, okay?”  
  
The way Louis shudders is all the answer he needs. Harry leans up and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and even with eyes closed Louis can feel the smile there. Then Harry falls back against the bed, and the words start coming out.  
  
“Fuck, Lou, I love this, I love having you inside me. I love the, the stretch and the fullness of it, I love knowing I’m still going to feel you inside me tomorrow when I’m running drills at practice,  _fuck_ ,” he catches his breath as Louis thrusts hard. “God, I love being able to feel how much you want me.”  
  
Louis hears the desperate sound coming from him before he realises he’s making it. He’s glad he’s got his eyes closed, because being able to watch these words leave Harry’s mouth as he said them would probably send him to an early grave.  
  
“God, this really gets to you, doesn’t it?” Harry asks, and Louis feels fingers stroking lightly over his face, dragging across his mouth. “I love seeing you like this, all torn up, Jesus, Lou, you should see yourself. Please, I want you to come, I want to watch you come, you’re so gorgeous when you do. I want you to come inside me, I want to hold you through it, please, Lou—”  
  
And that’s it. Louis’ orgasm hits him like a truck, and he sees stars. Harry, true to his word, keeps hold of him as he shakes through it. When he pulls himself together, Harry is looking at him with an expression that Louis can only describe as self-satisfied affection.  
  
“I’ve got you,” he says, and he’s not even wrong, the bastard.  
  
Louis sits back his haunches and pulls out as gently as he can. Harry winces at the emptiness, his arms stretched lazily above his head, and he’s such a picture that Louis can’t fucking stand it. He slides back on his knees, getting a good look at him. Then he bends over and, in one fluid movement, pushes four fingers inside Harry while sucking his cock into his mouth.  
  
Harry’s hips buck up, out of control, and Louis holds them down firmly with his free hand. There aren’t any words coming from Harry now, only high-pitched noises that get louder every time Louis’ fingers push inside him. Louis doesn’t bother trying to deepthroat, just sucks hard and wet on the head of Harry’s cock, loving the weight of him on his tongue. It’s almost as good as the way Harry feels around his fingers, hot and open and willing.  
  
Harry tugs on his hair in a universal signal, but Louis just pushes in deeper, just slides his mouth farther down Harry. Harry’s hand slips lower, stroking down Louis’ cheek, and then he’s coming with a choked-off shout. Louis swallows around the bitterness that floods his mouth, waiting for it to end before sliding his fingers out gingerly.  
  
He looks at Harry, who is staring at the ceiling in what appears to be a catatonic state. He’s breathing, though, so Louis isn’t too worried. Louis decides to give him a minute and stands up, stretching. He’s probably got about two minutes until he passes out himself, so he should make use of them. He removes the condom, feeling rather pleased with himself, and ties it off while walking to the bathroom on wobbling legs. When he comes back, Harry is lying where he left him, but he manages to turn his head to look at Louis.  
  
“Come here,” he says, his voice gravel and sex. He slides over on the mattress, giving Louis room to lie down beside him. They’re both sticky with sweat, but Harry doesn’t seem to care, pulling Louis in close for a lazy kiss. He hums happily around Louis’ tongue and then pulls away, giving him a final peck. “Sleep,” he says, though Louis isn’t sure if he’s talking to Louis or himself. He finds himself inclined to agree, though, even if Harry’s head is heavy on his  
chest. His eyes slipping closed, he finds he doesn’t mind much.  
  
When he wakes, he knows it’s morning by the sound of the birds outside. The light that strikes his face is soft, though, muted into various colors by the scarves Harry’s got hanging in the window. Right. Harry.  
  
Louis blinks the sleep from his eyes and turns to his right. There he is, curled up and rumpled, face slack and peaceful. Sometime in the night one of them must have pulled the sheet over them, and Harry’s skin looks impossibly golden against the white fabric, like there’s a light inside him that never turns off. It takes a conscious effort not to touch him.  
  
He looks like he’s sound asleep, and this is when Louis should make a break for it. He should carefully slide out from under the sheets, making sure not to wake Harry, dress in silence, and leave. He could leave a note like Harry did, get in his car, and drive. He could be home inside half an hour, easy, and fall back asleep in a bed that didn’t come with this pathetic eagerness that’s thumping in his chest.  
  
Harry’s a big boy, he would survive waking up alone, probably wouldn’t even blink. But something in Louis rebels against that, bristles at the idea of Harry slowly surfacing into wakefulness with no one there to see. It just—it seems a waste. That’s all.  
  
So when Harry furrows his brow and makes an unhappy noise half an hour later, his fingers clenching in the sheets as he stretches, Louis is there. Harry’s eyes squint open against the light and fall on Louis. The slow, groggy smile that blooms on his face is enough to put a gag on the part of Louis’ brain that’s still screaming for him to make his excuses and leave.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says, rolling onto his side to face Louis.  
  
“Hi,” Louis replies in a small voice, baffled. He knows he’s, you know, pretty good at sex, but that doesn’t justify the way that Harry is looking at him.  
  
“Sleep okay?” Harry asks, and Louis just nods in response. “Good,” Harry says softly. “You want to come over here, then?” And, well, it would be rude to refuse, wouldn’t it.  
  
Louis slides closer, his hand reaching out and running down Harry’s arm. Harry’s heat has seeped into the bed around him during the night, and his skin and the sheets have the same glowing warmth. Louis leans in and kisses Harry carefully. Their mouths are sour from the morning, but Louis can tolerate it for the sake of the pleased sound Harry makes.  
  
Then all of a sudden he can’t tolerate it anymore, not the softness of it, the slow melt of the moment. Soft things are quick to vanish, easy to forget, too fragile for life as Louis has come to understand it. And he can’t tolerate that, not for this.  
  
He pushes lightly at Harry’s shoulder until Harry takes a hint and lies back, then breaks the kiss and settles down on his side next to Harry, pulling his left arm up above his head. Harry looks at him curiously, but Louis sees recognition dawning in his face as he leans in to sink his teeth into the underside of Harry’s upper arm.  
  
Harry draws in a hissing breath as Louis goes to work, biting and sucking at the spot that Harry had once set aside for him. “Christ, someone’s pushy in the morning,” Harry says, sliding his other hand into Louis’ hair. Louis breaks away, snickering into Harry’s arm.  
  
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says slyly, sliding his hand under the sheets to wrap his hand around Harry’s half-hard cock. His own erection presses up against Harry’s hip, and Harry half laughs, half gasps.  
  
“You little  _shit_ ,” he says, and rolls over quickly so he’s on top of Louis. He grins down fondly, lacing their hands above Louis’ head, and slots their hips together. The contact and friction is good, it’s so fucking good, but what has Louis breathless is the closeness of it, the way he and Harry are flush against each other head to toe.  
  
They’re barely moving, just shifting together slowly in the low light. It may be morning, but this second, right here, feels outside of time, like Louis is going to get stranded here forever if he doesn’t watch himself. Harry leans his head close to whisper in Louis’ ear, and Louis can feel every movement of his lips. “You’re going to pay for that one, Tomlinson,” Harry says lightly, and Louis doesn’t think he knows how right he is.  
  
An hour and two orgasms later finds them in Harry’s tiny shower, taking turns to duck under the weak spray and wash away the remains of the last twelve hours. Hands slide over slippery skin a few times, but neither of them can muster up the energy for shower groping, much less shower sex. They do indulge a brief make-out session against the bathroom sink after they’ve brushed the morning breath from their mouths, but they’re only human, and Harry tastes like mint and Louis.  
  
When they leave the bathroom, Louis makes a beeline for his clothes, but Harry seems indifferent, walking naked to the kitchen. Louis watches from the corner, pulling on his pants, as Harry reaches up and takes something down from the top of the refrigerator: his camera.  
  
“Don’t you dare,” Louis says, his trousers halfway up his legs, but Harry isn’t pointing the camera at him. Instead, he turns and eyes the table.  
  
“So vain, Tommo,” Harry says, lining up his shot. The table is exactly as they left it last night, plates lying out and wineglasses empty. Harry’s chair is still lying on the ground. He snaps pictures from a few different angles, then straightens, seemingly satisfied. He looks at Louis with a smile. “Don’t worry, Lou, I won’t document your current…vulnerability.” He nods at Louis’ state of undress and walks to put the camera back above the fridge.  
  
Louis makes himself laugh as he buckles his belt, but the words hit him harder than he wants to let on. If Harry wanted, he could document a hell of a lot of things, vulnerability included. It would scare the hell out of him if he let himself think about it, but it’s muffled, buried under white sheets and colorful scarves and the thought of the picture Harry just took finding a place on his wall.  
  
Harry saunters over, still naked, his hair dripping. He slips his arms around Louis’ waist from behind and hums happily. “You could stay if you want,” he says. “For the day. I’ve got food, we can just hole up here and…” he trails off, grinning into Louis’ neck. “Hang out.”  
  
And it sounds wonderful, it really does. It sounds amazing, and that’s what’s got Louis squirming, because it sounds so amazing that he could get used to it. Louis has a policy against getting used to amazing things, especially when he feels like he’s already used up his monthly quota of self-indulgence. That’s what staying would be, an indulgence, especially when he actually has things he needs to be doing.  
  
He slips out of Harry’s arms reluctantly and picks up his shirt, pulling it over his head. “Sorry, Hazza my boy, but I can’t actually stay. I’ve got to run by the flat to feed Duchess, she’s been alone since last night.”  
  
Harry just looks at him, his face falling. “You’ve got to feed Duchess.”  
  
Louis nods his head furiously. “She’s very particular, if I don’t get there soon she’ll be out of sorts all week.” It’s true. He has the scars to prove it. Sure, he could text Zayn and have him run over to feed her, or call one of his neighbors, but he can’t justify doing that for the sake of a few more hours of sex, no matter how good it is.  
  
Finally, Harry nods back. “Okay. Fair enough. Another time, then.”  
  
“This was—I had a really nice time, this was lovely,” Louis stammers, feeling oddly guilty. He shouldn’t feel guilty. These are the actions of a mature, responsible adult. “Thank you for dinner. And. Everything else.”  
  
Harry just smirks a little and pulls Louis in by the waist, drawing him into a slow, unhurried kiss. “You’re welcome,” he murmurs when they finally break apart, and God, this would be easier if Harry were at least wearing some pants.  
  
Louis manages to extricate himself, doing his best to avoid all eye contact. Evasive maneuvers need to start now, or his resolve is going to collapse. He grabs his coat from the armchair and walks toward the door, preparing to say goodbye. Turning back, his hand on the doorknob, he’s confronted with the sight of Harry leaning against the kitchen counter, watching him like a particularly lustful Greek statue. “I might be able to come back later,” Louis rushes, and that is absolutely not what he planned on having come out of his mouth.  
  
“No pressure,” Harry says, but he’s beaming, and naked, and Louis flees to the safety of the lift. If he slides down the wall and sits there, head between his knees, for a few minutes before hitting a button, then frankly he doesn’t think he could be blamed.  
  
He makes it back to his flat in one piece, and Duchess is only moderately wrathful over her delayed breakfast. It’s a surprisingly productive day for him, and he cuts a vast swathe through the mountain of marking that’s been looming over his head all week. If the urgency of avoiding the decision of whether or not to go back to Harry’s gives him a bit of extra drive, well, at least his neuroses are having positive side effects this time around.  
  
Louis has to quit dodging the issue when Harry texts him mid-afternoon.  
  
 _so should i put clothes back on or not_  
  
Groaning, Louis tosses the phone down the couch. Fucking Harry and his nudity and his ability to make this all sound so easy. And it feels easy, too, when Louis is with him, feels as easy as a song, which is all the more reason for Louis to be disciplined about this now. If he can’t trust himself when he’s around Harry, he can at least try to be rational when he’s alone. Right now, rationality is telling Louis that the last time he had this little self-control he didn’t like the way things ended. Sighing, he reaches down the couch and grabs the phone.  
  
 _sorry, haz, got buried by work, don’t think i can make it :(_  
  
He lets his head drop back against the cushions and thinks of Harry reading the text, thinks of the way his lips purse when he’s disappointed. Before he can think about it, he picks the phone up one last time.  
  
 _but i’ll be thinking of u later tonight when im alone ;)_  
  
And honestly, what the fuck has rationality done for him lately anyway.  


**Z**

  
Zayn has to admit, in retrospect, this was probably not one of his better ideas.  
  
He really, really doesn't want to text Louis, because he knows Louis will never in a million years let him live this down. If Niall weren't away on a field trip, Zayn could maybe just text him instead and swear him to secrecy, and if he were very, very careful for the next month or so, Louis would never have to know and Zayn could escape a lifetime of disgrace. But as it is, Louis is his only hope. There's no way in hell he can leave this room in the state he's in, and his free period is almost over. He's running out of time.  
  
Zayn takes a deep breath and pulls out his phone, resigning himself to eternal shame.  
  
 _come to the lounge by the bathrooms in e building i need help D:_  
  
He shrinks back into the corner as he waits for Louis' response. He is hiding in the teacher's lounge with his cardigan tied around his head. This is possibly a new low.  
  
His phone buzzes in his hand, the death knell of his dignity.  
  
 _in the middle of class, what do u need?_  Louis' reply reads, and there is no way Zayn is explaining this via text message.  
  
 _please just come it’s an emergency DDD:_  
  
It’s another minute before Louis texts back,  _this had better be good_ , and Zayn cringes at the screen. Louis has no idea.  
  
The few minutes it takes for Louis to make it over are enough time to work himself into a proper state over the whole situation. This is bad. This is very, very bad. By the time Zayn hears footsteps approaching, he’s locked the door and seated himself on the floor in front of it, and it rattles against his back when Louis tries to open it.  
  
“The door’s locked, Zayn,” Louis says, and Zayn can picture his face pinched in annoyance on the other side. “Why’d you lock the door? Are you taking the piss?”  
  
“I’m gonna let you in,” Zayn tells him, “but first you have to swear you won’t laugh.”  
  
Pause.  
  
“I can’t promise that,” Louis says. “I don’t even know what you’ve done.”  
  
“Swear you won’t laugh!” Zayn says, and God, yes, definitely a new low.  
  
“You know I will, though,” Louis says, sounding impatient. “You wouldn’t have asked me to swear I wouldn’t if you didn’t already know I would.”  
  
“That doesn’t even—all right,  _fine_ ,” Zayn says. Louis is such a  _bastard_  sometimes, but he also came when Zayn needed him to, which counts for a lot. “Just. Please,  _try_  not to laugh.”  
  
“Okay, okay,” Louis relents. “Just open the door.”  
  
Zayn gets to his feet, fighting the dread weighing down his stomach. Maybe it won’t be as bad as he thinks. He hasn’t actually assessed the damage himself, after all. He unlocks the door and lets Louis in, shutting it behind him.  
  
Louis just stares at him.  
  
“Zayn,” he says. “Did you make me walk all the way over here to look at you with your cardigan ‘round your head?”  
  
“Just... let me explain,” Zayn says.  
  
“Have you suffered blunt force trauma to the head recently?” Louis says.  
  
“Shut up and listen,” Zayn tells him.  
  
“Right, sorry,” Louis says, holding both hands up. “Please, do go on.”  
  
“I thought I could do that thing like people do in films, you know, where they light their cigarettes on the stove,” Zayn says. “So I came over here, because it’s the only lounge with a stove in it, and I was bending down close to the flame and my, my hair sort of... caught fire.”  
  
“It  _what_?” Louis says, eyebrows shooting up his forehead. “How did that even happen, like, physically? I mean, I know you use a lot of product, but,  _Jesus_.”  
  
“Well,” Zayn admits, “I had sort of just sprayed it a bit more than usual.”  
  
“Why would you—” Louis cuts himself off mid-sentence, terrible realisation dawning on his face. “Oh my God. Zayn. You were going to go smoke under a smoke detector again, weren’t you?”  
  
Zayn doesn’t answer.  
  
“You have got a problem,” Louis moans. “How bad is it?”  
  
“I don’t know yet,” Zayn says. “I actually haven’t, um, taken this off since I used it to smother the fire.”  
  
Louis faces twists for a moment like he’s just swallowed something sour, and then his restraint finally cracks and he erupts into laughter.  
  
“I’m sorry!” he says at Zayn’s scowl, words uneven and gasping between peals of laughter. “I’m sorry, oh God, I tried, but you  _set your hair on fire_ , and then you _smothered it with your cardigan_ , please, I deserve a medal for lasting as long as I did.”  
  
Zayn has to give him credit for that, at least, especially lately. The last few weeks since he and Harry started doing whatever it is that they call their relationship now, it’s been impossible to wipe the smile off of Louis’ face. He doesn’t think Louis even realises that he’s walking around looking like a big smitten idiot, singing in the corridors, grinning down at his tea for no discernible reason, wearing his most garishly colored trousers. Zayn would tease him about it more if he weren’t afraid it would send Louis running away from Harry as fast as his mint green legs could carry him. Louis’ continued happiness is more important to Zayn than giving him shit. Because he is a good friend.  
  
Louis, on the other hand, is still laughing, and Zayn is still in crisis mode.  
  
“All right,” Louis says, wiping a tear from his eye. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now. Let’s get a look at you.”  
  
Reluctantly, Zayn bows his head and lets Louis pull the cardigan off, holding his breath for Louis’ reaction.  
  
“It’s...” Louis says. “It could definitely be worse.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Well, you could have lost your whole head, for example,” Louis says, and Zayn moans in despair. “Joking! Only joking!”  
  
“I’m going to choke you to death,” Zayn says.  
  
“You’re adorable,” Louis says. “It’s actually not horrible. I mean, definitely noticeable, and not in a look-at-me-I’m-so-avant-garde sort of way, just a I-singed-off-part-of-my-quiff way, but it’s only a bit on one side. It’ll probably grow back in a month or two.”  
  
“Oh God,” Zayn says, burying his face in his hands. “What am I going to do?”  
  
“Zayn, my friend,” Louis says. “I think it’s time for you to embrace that clandestine lover of yours: the beanie.”  
  
Zayn perks up a bit. That doesn’t seem so bad. “D’you think they’d let me wear it while I’m teaching?”  
  
Louis waves one hand dismissively. “Tell them you’ve got some sort of scalp ailment. Projectile dandruff, I don’t know. It’s not like you’ve ever been called out for any of your other flagrant wardrobe violations.”  
  
It’s a good point. Louis might not be entirely useless after all. “Have you got one?” Zayn says.  
  
“What, on me now? No, I’m not you, I don’t keep an entire spare ensemble with me at all times in case of some sort of dress code emergency. I think there might be one in my car if you want to go get it,” Louis says, checking his watch, “but I really need to get back to class.”  
  
Zayn looks at him piteously.  
  
“No.  _No_. Absolutely not, I am not going to get it for you. You brought this on yourself, you pay the price.”  
  
Zayn breaks out the puppy eyes.  
  
Louis returns a few minutes later with the beanie, and Zayn pulls it on, frowning at his reflection in the door of the microwave. It’s not bad, but it’s certainly not good either. He’s just going to have to lie low for a while until it grows back, then. No more smoking under smoke detectors, no more anonymously turning in the neighbors for failing to maintain their fire escape properly, not for at least a month. He drags his feet back to his classroom. His life is a sham. He is an embarrassment to the Malik name. He wonders how things could possibly get worse.  
  
It’s then that he reaches his classroom and sees the note stuck in the little letterbox on his door.  
  
 _Dear teachers,  
  
As you were informed at last month’s faculty meeting, renovations on the East Wing of the school will begin next week. Be advised that service workers, contractors, and inspectors will be on campus regularly over the course of the next two months to ensure that these renovations adhere to building codes, fire codes, et cetera. All visitors to campus will be issued identification badges and permitted to work during school hours. For the safety of our students and staff, attached is a list of those approved for campus access. We appreciate your cooperation during this exciting time of—_  
  
Zayn stops reading, frantically turning the page to the list of names. Right there, listed alongside several others from the fire department, is Liam Payne.  
  
Of. Fucking. Course.

 

 

**Chapter 10.**

As much as he hates listening to him whine, Louis has to admit it: Zayn has terrible, terrible luck.  
  
Under normal circumstances, Zayn’s terrible luck would dictate that he would somehow manage to never talk to Liam the entire time he was helping with renovations, no matter how hard he tried. Now that he actually doesn’t want to see him, Zayn having terrible luck apparently means that he’s going to have to flee Liam every time he turns a corner. So far he’s avoided having to actually interact with him, thanks to his clever utilization of storage cupboards and, on one particularly inventive occasion, a bin. Louis is almost impressed.  
  
He’s walking down a hallway with Zayn afterhours about a week after what Niall refers to exclusively as his “Human Torch incident,” when Zayn spots Liam at the other end of the hall, talking with a construction worker and some custodial staff.  
  
“Abort, abort, abort,” he says urgently. He grabs Louis’ arm in a vice-like grip and drags him toward the closest storage cupboard, unlocking it hurriedly before shoving Louis inside and closing the door behind them.  
  
“You realise that  _I’m_  not actually hiding from him, right?” Louis says into the darkness. “Or were you planning on burning off half my hair to force me into solidarity with you?”  
  
“Shh, Jesus, can you not shut up for thirty seconds?” Zayn says, pressing him as far back into the cupboard as he can. “Oh, shit, I’ve stepped in a buck—” He cuts himself off as voices approach.  
  
“You don’t happen to have any adjustable spanners, do you?” says a good-natured voice that can only belong to one person. “I’d use mine, only I’ve left my toolbox back at the stationhouse.”  
  
“Yeah, we’ve got one of those,” the second voice says. “I’ve got to run to a meeting, actually, but here, check in that cupboard on the left. Just leave the key on my desk when you’re done.”  
  
“Thanks,” Liam says, and then there’s the sound of footsteps approaching.  
  
“Oh no,” Zayn hisses into the darkness, “oh shit, oh fuck, he’s got a key, he’s coming—”  
  
“ _Ow_ , that’s my foot, you wanker,” Louis snaps, “get your elbow back over there, I’m not—”  
  
The footsteps stop right outside the closet door, and the key crunches into the lock.  
  
“Fucking hell, Louis,” Zayn whispers, pulling frantically on Louis’ arms, “hide me,  _hide me_.”  
  
Before Louis even has a chance to respond to that, the door opens and the closet is flooded with light. Liam freezes in the doorframe. Louis realises, suddenly and quite vividly, that he is standing with his body flush against Zayn’s and his hands braced on the shelf behind him. Zayn, for his part, is pressed up against the shelf, one armed wrapped around Louis’ waist, his face buried in Louis’ shoulder.  
  
Louis stares at Liam. Liam stares back.  
  
“Right,” Liam says, snapping out of his shock, his face a bright pink. “Hello. Sorry.”  
  
He shuts the door.  
  
“That,” Louis says after a moment, “may have appeared sexual.”  
  
“Oh God,” Zayn says, disentangling himself forcefully from Louis. “Oh my God, you have to go after him.”  
  
“ _Me_?” Louis demands. “Why do  _I_  have to go after him?”  
  
“I can’t do it, Louis, you know I can’t,” Zayn says in a rush. “Please, go tell him that wasn’t what it looked like,  _please_.”  
  
“What do you want me to say?” Louis says, tripping over a bucket in search of the door. “Sorry it looked like we were having a grope in a supply cupboard, actually Zayn just set his own head on fire in a desperate attempt to get your attention because he thinks you are destined to be together and now every time he sees you he throws himself into the nearest shelter like it’s a fucking air raid?”  
  
“I don’t care, just please go find him before he gets too far,” Zayn pleads.  
  
Louis heaves a sigh. “Fine, I’ll do it, but let the record show that I continue to be the best friend anyone has ever had.”  
  
“Yes, you’re wonderful, I love you, please go,” Zayn says. Louis’ hand finally lands on the door handle, and he takes off down the hall as soon as he gets the door open.  
  
He manages to catch up with Liam in the next hallway, where he’s awkwardly checking the names on office doors, looking shell-shocked.  
  
“Liam!” Louis says, and Liam turns to look at him like the proverbial deer in headlights. “Look, about what you just saw, that really was not what it looked like, I swear.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Liam says. “Really, I’m not going to tell anyone.”  
  
“Well, that’s nice,” Louis says, clapping him on the shoulder. “But I promise you, it wasn’t anything like what you’re thinking. Zayn was helping me look for some parts for a piece of the set for the musical I’m directing, and the light went out, and then I tripped and fell on him. Promise.” Not bad, Louis thinks, for making it up on the spot.  
  
“You don’t have to lie to me,” Liam says, lowering his voice a little. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.”  
  
“Thanks, really,” Louis says, “but I’m not lying to you. Zayn’s my best friend, but it’s not like that between us at all.”  
  
“Okay,” Liam says carefully, and Louis can tell that he’s not convinced.  
  
“Honestly, I mean, obviously he’s very attractive, and pretty great in bed from what I’ve heard,” Louis stage whispers, and, oh, Zayn is going to owe him so much for that one, “but I’ve never thought of him that way. Our egos would never work together. It’d be a complete disaster.”  
  
Liam is staring at him now like he’s not sure where the hell this conversation is going. To be fair, neither is Louis.  
  
“I actually, um, you remember Harry? Tall, curly brown hair, coaches footy?” Liam nods, and Louis plows on. “He’s actually, well, he and I are. We’re—”  
  
And, wow, he can’t say it. Not even to try to save Zayn’s chances with Liam, even though he just threw out a lie as if it were nothing. He can’t say the word.  
  
“Involved,” he finishes finally. “He and I are involved, you know, personally. So obviously I wouldn’t be getting off with Zayn in a supply cupboard even if either of us wanted to. Which we don’t. So.”  
  
Liam laughs finally, and Louis exhales. “All right,” he says. “In that case, I’m happy for you and Harry, and I’m actually going to go back and get that spanner, then, if that’s okay.”  
  
Louis thinks there is probably a 95 percent chance that Zayn is currently still in that closet, sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth in the dark. Stall, Tomlinson, stall. “Yeah, the whole thing with Harry, it’s still pretty new,” he says, and God only knows why the fuck he chose the exact line of conversation he definitely does not want to have.  
  
“That’s always fun,” Liam says. He’s smiling like he really is genuinely happy for them and not just being polite, and Louis sees a way out and a chance to pry at the same time.  
  
“Yeah, are you, um, involved with anyone?” Louis says, unable to resist.  
  
“Nah,” Liam says, and since when is anyone this upfront and honest about themselves all the time? He makes it so easy. “I actually haven’t been with anybody since before I moved here. I was engaged for a while a couple of years ago, but she and I ended up calling it off.”  
  
Engaged. Liam is someone who once found a person that he loved so much he asked her to spend the rest of her life with him, and then it didn’t work out, and yet he still seems to sincerely believe in things like love and romance and being kind to people for no reason. Louis is amazed. This person is like the human antidote to his cynicism. Weird, but kind of brilliant. He wants to poke it.  
  
“Well, I’m sure the person you’re supposed to be with is just around the corner,” Louis says cheerfully. It’s really a shame that nobody but Liam is here to witness his brilliance.  
  
Liam laughs again. “I’m sure they are.”  
  
They.  _They_. It could mean nothing, but Zayn is going to die regardless.  
  
“Hey,” Louis says, suddenly struck with an idea. “If you’re looking for a spanner, you must be pretty decent with tools, right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Liam says. “I love building stuff.”  
  
“Excellent,” Louis says. “I was wondering, I’ve got a prop door that really needs to be rehinged, do you think you could show me how to fix it some time?”  
  
Liam’s face lights up immediately, as if Louis has just offered him free ice cream and pony rides instead of a chance to do some unpaid manual labor while Zayn hyperventilates in a corner. “I’d love to! I’m pretty busy right now, but if you can wait a few weeks I’ll have a day off and I can come in and fix it for you.”  
  
“That would be amazing,” Louis says. Just for the hell of it, he adds, “Zayn suggested you might be good at that sort of thing.”  
  
“Did he?” Liam says, and Louis curses Liam’s perpetually sunny demeanor for making it impossible to tell if he’s pleased at the thought or just at life in general.  
  
“Yeah,” Louis lies easily. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to have you on board.”  
  
Liam nods. “Sounds great. I really do need to go get that spanner now, but I’ve got Zayn’s number so I’ll let him know when I get a day off, and we can see about that door.”  
  
“My hero,” Louis says, extending his hand. Liam shakes it and then walks off the way he came, and Louis hopes Zayn’s had the sense to clear out by now.  
  
Louis whistles to himself and meanders back toward his classroom, shooting Zayn a warning text that Liam’s headed back as he goes. He immediately gets six responses in a row, all full of panicked question marks, and he texts back  _crisis averted_  and pockets his phone again.  
  
He’s got a little bit of marking left over and some sheet music to copy for tomorrow night’s rehearsal, but he feels good about how much he’s accomplished this week as he packs up his things for the day and checks his lesson plan for tomorrow. Even with Zayn in a state of crisis and Harry cutting into his sleep schedule almost every night (whether they’re together or apart, which is a little disconcerting), he’s right on track.  
  
He’s just about to turn out the lights and lock up when he hears a tiny knock on the door and looks up to see Harry, and his brain goes pleasantly fuzzy. Harry’s always such a picture when he’s fresh from a practice in the snow, and right now he’s all pink cheeks and red lips and curls under his wool hat, pigeon-toed and dimpling in the doorway. Louis wants to kiss him warm.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says. “Saw your car was still here.”  
  
“Just about to leave, actually,” Louis tells him.  
  
“I’ll walk you, then,” Harry says. He leans against the doorframe and waits while Louis wraps his scarf around his neck and flips the light switch, and then steps out of the way to let Louis close and lock the door.  
  
“Shall we?” Louis says, buttoning up his coat.  
  
“We shall,” Harry says, and they set off down the hall side by side. “How was your day?”  
  
“What, you mean since you last saw me at lunchtime?” Louis says, cheeky, and Harry elbows him. “Actually, it’s been quite eventful. I’ve just had to convince Liam that I wasn’t shagging Zayn in a cupboard.”  
  
 _“What?”_  
  
Louis tells him the whole story, leaving out the part where he mentioned their little whatever-the-hell their relationship is to Liam, and Harry has his head thrown back in laughter for half of it. “Do you think he’ll really come work on the set?” he asks.  
  
“I don’t doubt it, knowing him,” Louis says. “He’s not a real person.”  
  
“Oh my God, can you imagine,” Harry says, “Liam in a, a tool belt or something?”  
  
“If that happens, Zayn will probably have an actual stroke,” Louis says, already relishing the mental image. “Either that or he’ll make it through and then go home and furiously masturbate himself to death.”  
  
Harry laughs again as they turn down the last hallway, passing one of the dozens of bulletin boards along the way. He nudges Louis and points at the garishly pink poster pinned up next to all the flyers and announcements. “Maybe Zayn can ask him to the Valentine’s dance.”  
  
“Ugh,” Louis groans, rolling his eyes. “Don’t say those words to me. I’m trying to block that out of my mind.”  
  
“What, you’re not looking forward to our chaperone duties?” Harry teases. “Think of all the young love we’ll get to witness, Lou.”  
  
“Think of all the vomit I’ll get on my nice trousers, Haz,” Louis counters.  
  
“I think it’ll be nice,” Harry says.  
  
“You would,” Louis says, and Harry takes it in stride, grinning cheekily at him as he opens the door for both of them.  
  
The walk to Louis car isn’t a long one, and most of the staff has cleared out by now, so he and Harry can just cut straight through the car park. It’s just as well, because it’s freezing as they tread through the thin layer of snow and slush covering the concrete. Harry stays with him all the way and then pauses in the empty space next to Louis’ car while Louis gets his keys out.  
  
“Bollocks, it’s cold,” Louis says. He resists the urge to nose his way under Harry’s arm and press into the warmth constantly radiating from him, wrapping his arms around himself instead and bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “So, what’s up tonight? D’you want come over?”  
  
“I really wish I could, but I can’t tonight,” Harry says, looking genuinely put out about it. “I’ve got to do some editing for a project I’m supposed to be presenting tomorrow.”  
  
“Your loss, I’ve got hot chocolate. And whipped cream,” Louis says, making suggestive eyebrows at him, and Harry looks physically pained.  
  
“Don’t tempt me,” Harry says. “I’ve got to go be a responsible student.”  
  
Louis sighs. “I guess I can respect that.”  
  
Harry gives him a hug and Louis finds it hard to let go when he’s supposed to, mostly because Harry is a human space heater. He finally does, though, and when his fingers fumble with the door handle a little, he’s sure it’s just because they’re cold. He drops into the driver’s seat and starts the engine, desperate to get the heater on.  
  
“Hey,” Harry says just as Louis is about to close the door.  
  
Louis pauses with his hand on the door. “Yeah?”  
  
Harry takes a quick glance around the car park, and then he braces one hand on the top of the car and leans down into it and kisses Louis on the lips. It’s just a peck, and before Louis really has time to respond properly, Harry is stepping back and smiling at him.  
  
“Bye,” he says.  
  
“Bye,” Louis repeats automatically as Harry shuts the door.  
  
He watches Harry lollop off toward his own car, kicking up snow as he goes, and he touches his bottom lip with the tips of his fingers. They don’t really do casual goodbye kisses like that, or at least they haven’t yet. That was kind of a first. Hmm.  
  
He can feel the car filling up with warmth around him, which is odd, because it usually takes the heater in his shitty car longer to get going. Today is strange. That’s what he’s decided. Today is just strange.  
  
He puts his car in drive and thinks maybe he’ll put some brandy in his hot chocolate tonight.  


✖

  
  
Thankfully, Louis’ shift on chaperone duty doesn’t start until an hour before the end of the dance, meaning the amount of time he’ll be suffering is minimal and he has plenty of time to choose an appropriate Valentine’s Day ensemble. These things are important.  
  
When he finally pulls into the carpark, he’s wearing black pants, a white shirt, and bright red braces under his coat. Understated, but thematic nonetheless. Sometimes even he is impressed with how good he is. His sartorial brilliance isn’t enough to compensate for what he’s going to have to deal with for the next three hours, though. He spends about two minutes sitting in his car, forehead against the steering wheel, before he musters up the will to get out and trudge into the school.  
  
It’s every bit as bad as he expected, bass audible as soon as he enters the building and clusters of giggly students lining the halls, their inept flirtation attempts visible at twenty paces. Louis studiously ignores them and soldiers on to the assembly hall, taking a deep breath before pushing through the double doors and entering his humid, overcrowded, crepe-paper-bedecked nightmare. Niall, who he spots in the DJ booth, is playing the Cha-Cha Slide. It’s remixed, but still. Louis is under no illusions about his own sinfulness, but even he doesn’t deserve this.  
  
He spots Zayn lurking by the punch bowl with a fedora perched atop his still recovering quiff, staring despondently into his cup and steadfastly ignoring the three year 10 girls who as far as Louis can tell, are extremely thirsty. Parched, even, by the looks of things. Louis skirts the edge of the dance floor, kicking as many balloons as possible on the way over, and sidles up behind Zayn to clap him on the shoulder.  
  
“Cheer up, beautiful, your relief is here!” Louis says, glancing over Zayn’s shirt, which even in the dim light of the dance looks a vibrant fuschia. “Ah, attempting to keep the youth at bay by blinding them, eh? Not your worst strategy.”  
  
Zayn grins as he looks up. “Just because it wouldn’t suit your complexion doesn’t mean you have to be bitter about it,” he mutters, draining his cup. “You couldn’t pull this off if you tried.”  
  
Louis clutches at his chest and gasps. “You wound me, Frenchy!”  
  
Zayn looks at him blankly.  
  
Louis narrows his eyes. “Frenchy? From Grease? She’s a Pink Lady?” A blank stare. “Come on. Frenchy! She even dyes her hair pink!”  
  
Nothing.  
  
Louis throws up his hands. “For the love of God, Zayn! ‘Beauty School Dropout’? Go back to high school? No bells being rung? God, my references are wasted on the likes of you.”  
  
“It’s too bad,” says a voice from behind him. Louis twirls gracefully and absolutely does not swerve his head around fast enough to give him whiplash to see Harry standing on the other side of the punch table. “Frenchy’s the one who pierces her ears and tries to teach Sandy to smoke, right? Makes questionable hair decisions? Sorry, Zayn, but you’re definitely Frenchy,” he smiles.  
  
“First off, I am definitely one of the attractive greaser types. Secondly, you laugh it up all you want, I’m still the one who’s done with babysitting for the night,” Zayn says, shrugging on his leather jacket. Three different girls step on their dance partners’ feet. “Louis, you’ve got punch duty. Keep filling up glasses so there are plenty ready. Make sure no one spikes it and do your best not to die of boredom or secondhand embarrassment, yeah?”  
  
Louis nods as seriously as he can. “I shall not fail you, Zayn.” He grabs at his jacket sleeve as Zayn passes him. “My brother. My captain.  _My king_.”  
  
Zayn shakes him off as Harry giggles uncontrollably. “You are so, so weird. Get off me so I can observe this holiday properly and go get drunk alone in my flat.” Finally free of Louis’ clutches, he slumps off toward the door. Whatever. He loves the attention, and Louis will not hear otherwise.  
  
“Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Zayn!” Harry calls after him saccharinely. Zayn spins around, gives them a salute, and then is gone.  
  
Harry turns back to Louis with a smile. “Truly tragic.”  
  
Louis shrugs. “Are you surprised? This is the worst holiday ever created. It’s designed to make people feel bad about themselves. It’s silly at best and evil at worst. And God knows Zayn loves any opportunity to mope. On today of all days he actually has an excuse,” he says, pouring himself a cup of punch.  
  
Harry smirks. “Says the man in red braces.”  
  
Louis arches a single eyebrow over his cup. “They’re  _thematic_. And you’re one to talk.” Now that he has a chance to truly look Harry over, Louis is torn between respect and derision. Harry’s wearing a white blazer over a pink shirt, topped off with a red bow tie. He’s clearly made a few trips to the punch bowl himself, his lips stained dark pink.  
  
Okay. Maybe respect and derision aren’t all Louis is feeling. He takes a large gulp of punch and nearly gags on its cloying sweetness.  
  
“What, you don’t like the look?” Harry asks, all outstretched arms and mock hurt. He gives a quick spin, holding his jacket open. Louis considers throwing the rest of his drink on him, but decides that getting anyone wet is only going to make things worse.  
  
He just snorts instead. “You look like a human love heart,” he says, putting down his own cup and picking up empty ones to fill.  
  
Harry smiles. “Maybe that’s what I was going for.” He plants both hands on the table and leans across, close in to Louis. “Be mine?”  
  
By the time Louis has picked up the half-dozen cups he’d dropped on the floor, Harry is halfway across the dance floor, smirking as he separates couples dancing a bit too closely.  
  
Louis doesn’t envy him his particular chaperone detail, but Harry seems to be having fun with it. Every time Louis looks up from pouring punch or handing cups to sweaty teenagers, Harry is up to something else, apparently completely immune to shame. A man after Louis’ own heart.  
  
He’s distracted from his rather pathetic mooning by a group of students coming up for drinks. As he hands them out, he sees one girl gesture towards Niall onstage and say, “I can’t believe they managed to get him to DJ,” in a loud voice to her friend.  
  
Louis looks up at the stage and then back to them. “It’s just Niall,” he says, confused. The girls look at him like he’s grown two heads. Has Niall become the fit one while Louis wasn’t looking? What does that make Zayn, then, the other fit one?  
  
He hears one of them sarcastically stage whisper “ _just Nial_ l” as they walk away, and is spending a minute ruing the day he became the third most attractive member of his friend group when Harry regains his attention. Louis has to bury his head in his hands when he spots him splitting up an overly amorous couple by aggressively doing the robot immediately between them. Harry laughs when he sees him, then waggles his eyebrows in the direction of another grinding couple to his left. Louis makes a face at the pair, and then mouths  _Moonwalk_  at Harry. Harry grins, and immediately moonwalks directly at, and then through, the shocked duo. The couple separated, he turns and gives Louis an exaggerated thumbs-up. Louis points at another set of enthusiastic dancers on the other side of the hall and mouths  _Chicken dance_ , miming it a bit to make sure he understands. Harry throws up a crisp salute and sets off across the dance floor.  
  
Louis is spending his Friday night at work, in a hall that smells of sweat and Lynx, surrounded by pink crepe paper, and he can’t stop smiling.  
  
After an hour or so, the last song plays, and the lights come up. Niall takes off his headphones and leans into the microphone. “All right kids, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” He pauses, and then leans back in. “And you should probably just go home.”  
  
Harry walks across the dance floor, weaving in between the last students straggling out. “Did you successfully prevent punch spikage?” he asks, pouring himself another cup.  
  
“I did my best,” Louis smiles.  
  
“Damn,” Harry says, taking a sip. “I could use a drink after that, to be honest.”  
  
“Ah, yes, your quest to preserve the dignity of our fair students. It seemed successful from here.”  
  
“Oh, no doubt. I think several might have more dignity leaving than when they entered.”  
  
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”  
  
Harry just smiles at him slightly stupidly over the table, and Louis shudders to think what his own face must look like.  
  
“So,” Harry says suddenly. “Are you all done here?”  
  
Louis sighs. “Tragically, no. Niall and I are both on clean-up duty, because we’ve done terrible things in past lives and this is our punishment.”  
  
Harry’s lips quirk upwards. “Well, I’m sure you deserve it, but Niall seems pretty innocent to me.” He stops for a moment. “Unless you’re looking at it from the perspective of a kebab, I suppose.” He turns to look at Niall on the stage, packing up his turntable. “Hey, Horan!” he shouts.  
  
Niall looks up. “What do you want, Styles?” he yells back.  
  
“Get out of here, I’ll take care of your equipment,” Harry shouts. “I’ve got nothing better to do, and I’m sure you’ve got a hot date with a pint or five.”  
  
Niall throws up a V, laughing. “Fuck you, Harry. Thanks, mate. This is mine, but everything else goes in the AV closet.” He finishes closing up the turntable case, hops off the stage with it, and heads out the door. “You two have fun,” he croons as the door swings shut behind him.  
  
They’re alone.  
  
Harry turns to look at Louis, and Louis thinks about butterflies and jars and museums and why someone might enjoy the pin that holds them to a page.  
  
He swallows that thought and smiles, looking around the hall at the wilting balloons and fluorescent lights. “I bet this is where you bring all the girls,” he says, looking back up at Harry.  
  
Harry gestures expansively to the room. “How could I not? So atmospheric,” he says. He drops his arms. “And yet you’ve had a table between me and you all night.” He raises his eyebrows. “I’m starting to feel rebuffed.”  
  
Louis huffs a laugh and moves to circle the table, but Harry holds out an arm. “Wait, wait,” he says, backing up. “Let me earn it.” He turns and lopes toward the stage, vaulting up to the DJ booth and taking out his iPod. Apparently he has a plan. Louis isn’t sure why he bothers being surprised anymore.  
  
Louis crosses his arms and smiles at the ground. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, as soft piano chords begin to fill the room. Harry hops off the stage and runs back over, coming around the side of the table.  
  
He holds out his hand to Louis. “May I?” he asks. He dips his head in mock politeness, but the question in his eyes is real. Louis feels the warmth of his palm before he registers moving his hand, sees the happiness on Harry’s face before he knows what he’s saying yes to.  
  
“You know you’ve already seduced me, right?” Louis says, as Harry pulls him out into the middle of the hall, kicking aside balloons as he goes. “You’ve sealed the deal, this is totally unnecessary.” The floor is sticky with God knows what; Louis hopes it’s mostly punch. “And somebody could come in.”  
  
“Humour me,” Harry says, tugging him along, and Louis lets himself be pulled. Once they reach the center of the room, Harry slips his hands around Louis’ waist and draws him close.  
  
Louis puts his arms up around Harry’s shoulders, muttering “Of course you’d want to lead.” Harry smiles and ducks his head, shushing him. The music fills the room, a woman giving voice to words Louis has heard before.  
  
 _Wise men say  
Only fools rush in._  
  
Louis searches Harry’s face with his eyes, but Harry isn’t looking at him, his eyes downcast. Louis finds himself confronted with the fan of Harry’s eyelashes, the slight curve of a smile ghosting over his mouth.  
  
Suddenly looking is too much, and Louis finds himself pulling Harry closer, resting his chin on his shoulder. They sway in circles slowly, Harry spreading one hand across Louis’ lower back and lifting the other to thread his fingers through Louis’.  
  
Louis finds himself wanting to tell Harry that he’s glad that he’s leading, that Louis couldn’t lead because he’s never really slowdanced before. He wants to tell Harry that he skipped his own prom, faked sick because he couldn’t ask the person he really wanted to go with. His throat is choked with words, stories of every wedding he never went to because the taste of others’ champagne always turned sour in his mouth. He wants to tell Harry that no one has ever wanted to stand up with him in front of anybody else.  
  
He wants to tell Harry too much, so he kisses him instead, pulling back from Harry’s shoulder and pressing their lips carefully together. Harry makes a soft noise that Louis swallows and lets go of his hand, bringing his own back to Louis’ waist to pull him close, impossibly closer. Louis raises his free hand to Harry’s face, grazing his cheek with all five fingertips before sliding them into his hair.  
  
Harry smiles into the kiss and pulls back slightly. “D’you still hate Valentine’s, Lou?” he breathes, rubbing his nose against Louis’.  
  
Louis grins. “Yes,” he says. “I guess I don’t hate you, though.”  
  
He can feel Harry’s laugh against his mouth. “Fair enough,” Harry says, before drawing him back in. “I don’t hate you either,” he whispers, and it’s Louis’ turn to smile into the embrace.  
  
They stay like that for a long time, two figures in the center of the empty hall, swaying together until the last notes of the song have long faded away.  
  
Finally, Louis heaves a sigh. “So, as lovely as this is,” he says, pulling away from Harry. “We still actually have to clean this place up.”  
  
Slightly dazed, Harry looks around at the mess that surrounds them. “Right. That. Shit,” he says, dropping his head onto Louis’ shoulder. “I may not have thought this through.”  
  
“Hey,” Louis says, nudging Harry’s head back up. “Race you.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’ll take that side,” Louis says, sliding one hand down to the small of Harry’s back and gesturing toward the far side of the hall with his chin, “you take this side, and whoever finishes first wins.”  
  
Harry smirks. “And what will be my prize when I destroy you?”  
  
“You’ll get to shag me sooner,” Louis says, digging his fingers in. Harry hums at that, low and pleased.  
  
“Loser gives the winner a blowjob,” Harry says. He gives Louis one last quick peck on the lips, and then he’s off across the floor and scooping up deflated balloons by the handful. Louis tries to do the same, but he’s laughing too hard to be very effective, too amused to even fight back when Harry starts throwing debris from his side over into Louis’. Louis has always been a competitive sort, but he thinks this is one fight he might not mind losing.

**Z**

  
  
**Niall Horan**  niallerrr@gmail.com 9:52 AM (32 minutes ago)  
to me, Louis, Harry  
  
have you lads seen this yet  
  
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1590235_local-fireman-saves-family-of-four-from-burning-house/rss=yes  
  
  
 **Zayn Malik**  djmalik@gmail.com 9:55 (29 minutes ago)  
to Niall, Louis, Harry  
  
NO OMFG  
HE IS PERFECT :)))  
XXX  
  
  
 **Louis Tomlinson**  loutommo@gmail.com 10:09 AM (15 minutes ago)  
to me, Niall, Harry  
  
honestly i thought you googled him once an hour, zayn, i’m disappointed  
  
this is actually really impressive, though. we should take him out for drinks to celebrate and then zayn can give him a congratulations blowjob, yeah??  
  
xx  
  
  
 **Zayn Malik**  djmalik@gmail.com 10:11 AM (13 minutes ago)  
to Louis, Niall, Harry  
  
shut up lou  
i hate you  
>:(  
  
x  
  
  
 **Harry Styles**  styleshaz@gmail.com 10:12 AM (12 minutes ago)  
to me, Louis, Niall  
  
this is so cool!! I’m with Louis ;) Zayn, you should call him..  
xx  
  
  
 **Niall Horan**  niallerrr@gmail.com 10:13 AM (11 minutes ago)  
to me, Harry, Louis  
  
agreed. pints!  
  
  
 **Zayn Malik**  djmalik@gmail.com 10:15 AM (9 minutes ago)  
to Niall, Harry, Louis  
  
i can’t, it would be too weird :/ aha  
x  
  
  
 **Zayn Malik**  djmalik@gmail.com 10:15 AM (9 minutes ago)  
to Niall, Harry, Louis  
  
it’d be weird, right?? :///  
  
  
 **Zayn Malik**  djmalik@gmail.com 10:15 AM (9 minutes ago)  
to Niall, Harry, Louis  
  
what would i even say if i called him?? :/ aha  
x  
  
  
 **Louis Tomlinson**  loutommo@gmail.com 10:17 AM (7 minutes ago)  
to me, Niall, Harry  
  
tell him that you and your mates want to take him out for drinks and blowjobs. i don’t see why you’re making this so complicated babe  
i know haz and i are both free tonight, what about you nialler?  
x  
  
  
 **Niall Horan**  niallerrr@gmail.com 10:20 (4 minutes ago)  
to me, Louis, Harry  
  
for beer and watching zayn try to get off with liam? i’m always free.  
  
  
  
Zayn stares down at his phone. The email notifications have stopped coming, and now it’s just him and his text message inbox, waiting each other out.  
  
Usually if he were going to plan an outing with Liam, he’d give himself weeks of preparation, plenty of time to work up his courage and practice his smolder in front of the mirror and come up with the perfect scenario. This is different, though. He's got a time constraint to deal with, so he can't afford to go through his normal process. It's now or never.   
  
After a dozen drafts, Zayn finally comes up with a message that doesn’t sound completely and hopelessly daft or pathetic.  
  
 _heard you’re a hero! the lads and i want to take you out for drinks tonight to celebrate. are you free? :) xx_  
  
He closes his eyes and hits send before he has a chance to overthink it.  
  
He has plenty of time to think about it after it’s sent, though, and he comes up with twelve different ways he could have phrased the text better and about a hundred reasons he never should have sent it at all. In fact, he’s so so focused on how stupid the invitation was that he doesn’t even consider what to do if Liam says yes.  
  
Which he does.  
  
Zayn stares blankly down at his phone, at the  _yea sounds brillllllll where shud i meet youuuu??_  and tries to formulate a plan. He’s normally so good at plans, but right now he’s got nothing.  
  
He pulls it together enough to send Liam Louis’ address and the name of a bar they can go to afterwards, telling him to meet up with them at Louis’ flat first. Then he drafts a massive email to the lads demanding that they be on their best behavior, realises that it provides Louis a point-by-point instruction manual on how to drive him mad, and deletes it. Instead he just sends a mass text and hopes for the best.  
  
 _HE’S COMING OUT W US 2NITE :DDD LOU’S AT 9 THEN MOVING TO THE STUDY NO MENTION OF BJS PLS xx_  
  
The next five hours are spent in a haze, as Zayn retreats to the comfort and safety of panicking about his appearance. He showers twice, just to be sure, and tosses the entirety of his wardrobe onto his bed. Thankfully enough of his hair has grown back that he can go without a hat with enough artful tousling, but the rest is the hard part. Eventually, after cycling through two weeks’ worth of outfits, he settles on his best jeans and a slouchy black top that's just loose enough to show off his collarbones. He checks himself out in the mirror and decides he looks like a sexy waif. Dickensian chic. Liam rescues people for a living, vulnerability probably does it for him, right?  
  
He gets all the clothing re-folded and off the bed—you can never be over-prepared—just in time to throw on a jacket and drive over to Louis’ place. He fidgets the entire way over, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel and constantly checking his hair in the rearview mirror. It’s going to be fine. Everything will go great, Liam will love him, and in years to come they will celebrate this date as their anniversary, and they’ll have cheesecake with chocolate sauce on top and Liam will let him lick it off his abs and—okay, wow, now is not the time for that train of thought.  
  
As he pulls into the carpark of Louis’ building, he spots Liam’s SUV—ahh, the memories—and his heartbeat drops the bass. One last glance at the mirror, and then he’s locking his car and taking the steps up to Louis’ flat two at a time.  
  
Louis opens the door with a grin and stands aside to let Zayn enter. “You’re just in time for shots,” he says brightly. Zayn would protest, except then he sees Liam standing there with the rest of them, wearing a white shirt and waving, and he really, really needs a drink.  
  
“Hi Zayn!” Liam says, taking the shot that Niall hands him with a slightly dubious look. “Thanks for inviting me, this is wicked.”  
  
“Thanks for not letting those people burn to death,” Zayn replies, which. Okay. Not his best start, probably.  
  
Liam just smiles and shrugs. “Just doing my job,” he says, and Zayn is so distracted by how much he adores him that he actually forgets to be embarrassed. He catches Harry nudging Louis in the stomach out of the corner of his eye, but then they’re all taking shots and hey, who gives a fuck.  
  
They spend an hour there at Louis’, drinking and taking turns getting crushed by Niall at Guitar Hero. Zayn focuses mainly on not stroking Liam’s forearms. Or staring at his mouth. Or touching his collar. Maybe drinking right away was a mistake. Thankfully there are plenty of distractions, as Harry keeps half-jokingly suggesting body shots, and Louis seems to have decided that the best way to shut him up is to bite him. Liam just laughs at them, though, and Zayn knows that even if he weren’t already drunk he’d still feel just as warm and happy, all his favorites in a room together.  
  
They’re tipsy enough that nobody even seems to realise Harry’s called them a taxi until it’s there and they all have to rush out, running down the stairs with their jackets still half on and piling into the back of the taxi. Zayn is the kind of drunk that makes transportation seem instantaneous, and the only thing he remembers of the ride over is the way the city lights slid across Liam’s face. Well, he also remembers Harry licking Niall’s face, but he’s not entirely sure why that happened, and since Louis just doubled up in laughter he figures he doesn’t have to worry.  
  
When they get to The Study there’s a massive line, but the bouncer seems to recognize Niall and lets them all in right away. “How the hell do you know everyone?” he hears Louis ask Niall, who just sort of shrugs.  
  
It seems that more people waiting outside than there are inside because it’s not too crowded yet, and they take advantage and head straight to the bar. Clinging to his buzz for courage, Zayn turns to Liam. “What d’ya want? I’m buying.”  
  
“You don’t have to—” Liam starts.  
  
“No,” Zayn says, cutting him off and allowing himself to put his hand on his arm. Mmm, arm. “Heroes don’t buy drinks. What’ll it be?”  
  
Liam grins and nudges him with his shoulder. Bliss. “Just a beer, I think. Don’t want to get too pissed.”  
  
“Good idea,” Zayn says, because all of Liam’s ideas are good. He nudges him back, because he can, dammit, and he’s going to get as much physical contact in as possible before he sobers up too much. He flags the bartender down and orders two lagers, trying not to wince when he hears how overpriced they are. It’s a worthy cause, and to be honest most of the time he goes to bars he’s the one getting bought drinks, so it’s only fair.  
  
All five of them crowd around a single table together and settle in for a while, shouting things at each other above the noise and taking turns fetching refills. It’s loud, but it’s good company, and Zayn feels like it’s going well. It’s going really, really well. He loses track of how long they’ve been there, so he’s not exactly sure when Niall breaks off and heads for the billiards table he’s been eyeing all night, pint in hand and eager to separate some unsuspecting patrons from their money.  
  
When it’s Harry’s turn to get the next round, Zayn finds himself alone with Liam and Louis staring at them from across the table. Normally that would make Zayn break into an anxious sweat, but Louis seems to want to play the wingman tonight, just chiming in to keep conversation moving whenever Zayn gets completely tongue-tied. Granted, that means Louis is keeping up about half of the conversation, but still, Zayn appreciates that he isn’t taking this particular opportunity to humiliate him.  
  
Louis keeps getting quieter and quieter, though, and eventually Zayn realises what’s distracting him. Harry’s still at the bar, but he isn’t alone—there’s a tall bloke in a Chelsea shirt who looks entirely too pleased to be talking to him. Zayn doesn’t like the look of him, but he likes the way Louis’ eyes are narrowing less.  
  
“Excuse me,” Louis says, putting his pint glass down heavily. He slides his chair back and stands up. “I’ll just be a moment.”  
  
“I’m actually going to run to the toilets, myself,” Liam says, getting up as well. “Zayn, will you be all right here?”  
  
“What? Yes,” Zayn says, suddenly finding himself alone at the table. He takes a moment to watch the lines of Liam’s back as he walks away, and then turns his attention to the drama at the bar. Louis is approaching the bar, settling in a little farther down than Harry and his new friend and hailing the bartender.  
  
It’s interesting to watch, actually, because he knows Louis probably thinks he’s passing himself off as nonchalant, but Zayn can see the tense set of his shoulders and the cold way he’s eyeing the situation. He knows Louis has a wide streak of protectiveness and possessiveness, but in all the time they’ve know each other, Zayn’s never seen him get jealous over a guy. Food, parking spaces, the right to wear braces? Sure. A guy? Never. Mostly because he’s never seen Louis get attached enough to someone to even care if he fucked anybody else. Once again, it seems like Harry is the exception.  
  
The man in the Chelsea shirt laughs at something Harry says and leans in to squeeze Harry’s hip, and that’s it, Louis abandons his spot at the bar and walks over to introduce himself into the conversation. He smiles at Harry when he sidles up, sliding a hand over his lower back, but if it’s meant to mark his territory, the man either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Louis says something, but the man waves him off.  
  
Louis says something else, and Zayn can tell just from the set of Louis’ chin and the slant of his mouth that it’s one of those patented Tommo one-liners that’s designed to utterly decimate a human as viciously and succinctly as possible. The man finally does drop his attention from Harry at that, and Louis takes a step away from Harry and closer to him. It’s suddenly clear that the man is several inches taller than Louis, even taller than Harry. Louis wobbles a little but doesn’t back down. The part of Zayn’s brain that isn’t screaming oh shit is pretty impressed that Louis can manage such a look of pure, icy disdain after so many beers.  
  
The next few things happen very, very quickly:  
  
One, Louis says one last thing, and the man pushes him so hard that he falls over the barstool behind him.  
  
Two, Liam steps out of the toilets.  
  
Three, Niall puts down his beer.  
  
Four, the song on the speakers next to Zayn changes to “Helter Skelter.”  
  
Five, Harry yanks the man around by his shirt and clocks him in the mouth.  
  
Someone screams near the bar and Zayn is elbowing his way through the crowd as Liam closes in from the other side, and shit, Zayn is too fucking drunk for this. He can still see Harry and Louis over the heads of the crowd, the bartender yelling at them as Louis hauls himself upright, roughed up but in one piece.  
  
Satisfied that Louis isn’t going to bleed out on the floor, Zayn turns his attention to the next most pressing issue: the angry Chelsea fan dragging himself up off the floor. He’s bleeding from a cut lip and looks murderous, and judging by the way Harry is nursing his hand, that first blow was more blind luck than anything. Shoving people aside, Zayn can’t help but wish his friends had chivalrous impulses that didn’t lead to anyone getting the shit kicked out of them.  
  
Liam gets there first, sliding between Harry and the bleeding man with his hands raised, the very picture of mediation, and Zayn would write a sonnet comparing him to Benvolio if he had the time. Or if that particular play ended differently. God fucking  _dammit_ , when did the entire population of the greater Manchester metropolis find their way between him and the bar? The bartender is still yelling, but Zayn doubts that he’ll be able to shut this down before it gets worse, and he needs to fucking  _get over there_. He spills at least three pints of lager on his way through the crush and doesn’t apologize for a single one.  
  
He finally breaks through the crowd in time to hear the trail end of Liam’s “all right, lads,” but Chelsea isn’t having it, fisting a hand in Liam’s t-shirt and growling something at him through bloody teeth that changes the set of Liam’s jaw and—oh. Hmm. Zayn had always thought “seeing red” was a metaphor, but judging by the way his vision is burning at this idiot’s hands on Liam, he guesses not.  
  
He’s snapped out of it by a literal  _SNAP_ —and looks over to see Niall, manic grin on his face, holding two halves of a billiards cue that he’s apparently just broken over his knee.  
  
“Let’s fucking  _go,_  big man,” he shouts, gleefully staring down Chelsea and completely ignoring the eyes of every other person in the bar fixed on him.  
  
Chelsea hold on Liam’s shirt loosens and his jaw falls slightly open. “What are you playing at, mate?” he demands.  
  
Niall reaches up and turns his hat around so the brim faces backwards and jumps up and down in place, shaking his arms out. “You want a fight? I got your fucking fight, ya cunt,” and he tosses one half of the pool cue to Zayn, who catches it two-handedly more out of reflex than anything else.  
  
“Um,” Zayn says. He can hear the bartender calling the police.  
  
Chelsea dropped Liam’s shirt completely now. “You’re fucking mental,” he says, and Zayn adds a silent co-sign. The crowd that had been watching is fleeing quickly, apparently not eager to be around for whatever happens next.  
  
Niall throws his head back and lets out a banshee laugh. “Mate,” he snickers, “I’m fucking  _Irish_.” He licks his lips, and to his credit, Chelsea only trips over one barstool as he beats his retreat to the bar’s back room.  
  
“We should go,” Liam says. “Now. We should go  _now_.” Zayn nods vehemently, feeling much more sober than he did three minutes ago.  
  
They spill out into the street on a wave of noise and adrenaline, Zayn practically dragging Niall by the collar of his shirt. He may have just saved their arses, but he’s also fucking batshit and Zayn’ll be damned if he lets him out of his sight. Harry and Louis are in the middle of some kind of argument, and Liam is bringing up the rear, walking backwards to make sure that nobody comes at them from behind.  
  
“You were flirting with him,” Louis is saying as he stumbles a couple of feet down the sidewalk.  
  
“I wasn’t _flirting_ with him, I was just being nice,” Harry says, following after him.  
  
“Right, by flirting with him,” Louis says.  
  
“You’re  _jealous_ ,” Harry says, and Zayn doesn’t have the time or brain power to try to intervene, especially not when he’s too busy holding Niall in a bear hug from behind in an attempt to wrangle him away from the club.  
  
“Let me go back in!” Niall says, still clutching half a billiard stick, which Zayn distantly thinks they should maybe get rid of because it could probably count as evidence. “I haven’t gotten to trounce anybody in ages, c’mon—”  
  
“Shut up, you lunatic,” Zayn grunts. He looks at Liam, who’s standing nearby, looking sort of lost. “I am so fucking sorry, I swear to God things aren’t normally like this when we go out.”  
  
“It’s really fine,” Liam says with a laugh. “Kind of exciting, actually.”  
  
“You are incredible,” Zayn says before he can even think about stopping himself. “We need to get out of here before the police show up. Where’s—?” He turns around and finds that Harry and Louis have stopped arguing and are now ravishing each other on the hood of a parked car instead. “Oi! Get off of there, Jesus, you don’t even know whose car that—”  
  
The question is answered at that moment when Chelsea exits the bar flanked by two equally large friends, spots Harry and Louis, and freezes in his tracks.  
  
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Zayn and Chelsea say in unison.  
  
“Shit,” Louis says, almost falling over as he scrambles upright, and Chelsea’s friends are closing in.  
  
“Taxi!” Zayn yells, shoving Niall at Liam and throwing his arms out for the fucking godsend of a taxi that has just turned onto their street. The driver stops by the curb and Zayn yanks the door open and shoves Niall into the passenger seat, slamming the door in his face.  
  
Niall’s got the window down and he’s shouting something that sounds like “shower of cunts” at the men on the sidewalk while Liam slides into the back seat of the cab first, and it’s a sign of how out of control everything has gotten that Zayn doesn’t even panic over having to squeeze in next to him. Louis shoves Harry in next, and then he climbs directly into Harry’s lap and immediately picks up where they left off.  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Zayn says, just barely managing to avoid getting one of Louis’ knees to his crotch. Louis is sitting astride Harry’s hips, head brushing the ceiling of the cab and looking exactly the opposite of concerned about anybody else in the car witnessing this event.  
  
“Where to?” the driver says. He seems entirely unfazed by the proceedings, and Zayn feels a fleeting sense of thanks that at least he won’t report them to the police.  
  
It takes him two tries to get the address out right, though, because right next to him Louis has got his tongue in Harry’s mouth and wow, even in the middle of everything else, the sight of Harry’s hands sliding down Louis’ back to his arse is really fucking distracting. Louis arches into Harry’s hands and grabs at Harry’s hair and kisses him hard, and one of his feet is on Zayn’s knee, and Zayn has no fucking idea what to do with himself.  
  
Niall is still ranting from the front seat, on and on about “could’ve fucking taken ‘im” and “know who I fucking am,” apparently choosing to ignore the fact that Louis is giving Harry an extremely intimate lap dance two feet away from him. Zayn’s thankful for that too, though, because it’s the only noise in the car other than Harry and Louis’ heavy breathing and the wet sound of mouths.  
  
The adrenaline has finally started to subside, and on his other side, he can feel Liam sitting very, very still, and Zayn wants to apologize again or promise to make this up to him or even just make a joke about the whole thing but he can’t, physically  _can’t_  bring himself to look at him. He’s too drunk to know if he’s fucked this up completely, but fortunately he’s at least drunk enough that the whole situation is kind of hilarious. In a hysterical, oh-God-what’s-happening-how-is-this-my-life sort of way, yes. But hilarious.  
  
Harry and Louis have abandoned all restraint by now, hands everywhere and hips grinding and muttering things to each other between kisses that Zayn can only catch bits of, “yeah” and “God” and once “mine.”  
  
“D’you lads need a condom back there?” Niall says, grinning over his shoulder. Harry doesn’t even respond, and Louis only spares a moment to take one hand off of Harry and throw Niall an obscene hand gesture before returning it to the inside of Harry’s shirt.  
  
Liam has pulled out his phone and is apparently attempting to occupy himself, but Zayn is close enough to see the screen and all he’s doing is scrolling up and down through his contact list again and again and again. Zayn feels like laughing, but he also feels like dying, because Liam is  _right there_  and this is  _weird_ , and Zayn really should not be turned on by two of his best friends getting each other off but he’s drunk and he hasn’t been laid in a long time and he’s riding the sexual frustration from being with Liam all night and Harry and Louis are both fit and he’s _only human_ , all right?  
  
“You’re so fucking hot,” Harry mumbles, sounding drunker than ever, and Louis practically fucking  _purrs_  at that, the vain bastard. Zayn’s trying not to look, honestly, he really is, but Louis leans in and drags his tongue up Harry’s throat and it’s really, really hard to look away.  
  
“Like that, babe?” Zayn sees Louis say against Harry’s neck. He grinds down hard, and the noise Harry makes in response is absolutely pornographic. Louis’ mouth drops open a little like even he wasn’t prepared for that one, and then he moves his mouth up to Harry’s ear and says, “Gonna fuck you as soon as we get home.”  
  
There’s a muffled clatter from Zayn’s other side as Liam fumbles his phone onto the floor of the cab. Zayn buries his face in his hands and prays for deliverance.  
  
The taxi drops them off at Louis’ flat, and Zayn gives the driver an extra ten pounds and a heartfelt apology before they all take on the stairs, which is no small feat in their current state. Louis has got Harry by the hand, and the instant they make it inside, he pulling Harry toward the bedroom.  
  
"Have you got a condom?" Louis mumbles to Harry, half-tripping over a lamp table and not keeping his voice nearly low enough. "We used the last—"  
  
"Do we need one?" Harry interrupts impatiently. Zayn is very thankful they're almost to the bedroom, because this conversation is far beyond anything that needs to be public knowledge. Louis stumbles to a stop momentarily to squint at Harry, like maybe he's seeing two of him and he's trying to pick out which one is the real one. "I haven't—not with anyone else," Harry says. "Have you?"  
  
Louis grabs a fistful of Harry's shirt and says, "I haven't wanted to fuck anybody else since I met you."  
  
There's a full second in which Harry looks absolutely gobsmacked, and then he says, quite eloquently, "Fuck," and Louis grins and yanks him into the room and slams the door behind them.  
  
“Wait for it,” Niall says, holding up one finger. He counts backwards silently, mouthing  _three, two, one_ —  
  
As if on cue, distorted guitar comes flooding from Louis’ bedroom stereo through the wall, the bass turned up so loud that it rattles the dishes in the kitchen cabinets.  
  
“God, The Weeknd? Really?” Zayn says. “Does Louis even know who that is?”  
  
“Harry makes their sex playlists,” Niall tells him, pulling one of the pillows off the couch and throwing it on the floor before flopping down on top of it. “He asked me for suggestions once.”  
  
“Why didn’t he ask me?” Zayn says, pouting.  
  
“Because he doesn’t want to fuck to Drake on vinyl,” Niall says. He’s kicked back with his hat pulled down over his face, so he doesn’t see the face Zayn makes at him.  
  
“I like Drake,” Liam chimes in. “I like Usher better, though. Mostly his slow jams.”  
  
Niall extends a fist for Liam to bump it and says something appreciative followed by something about mixtapes, but Zayn is busy trying very, very hard to process that input in this context without curling into a ball on the floor.  
  
He fetches a six pack of beers out of Louis’ refrigerator instead. And so The Weeknd plays on, and Niall orders a pizza, and they all stay up for another hour drinking and talking about pointless things while Harry and Louis fuck in the next room, and it’s completely ridiculous, but somehow it still feels natural, like this was always going to happen anyway. Maybe that’s just because he’s drunk.  
  
A stray thought about his novel strikes him as he watches Niall try to goad Liam into shotgunning a can of Coke. A band, he think. Not singers. The book should be about a band. He hopes he can remember it when he sobers up.  
  
He passes out on the couch, and when he wakes up in the morning, Harry is cooking everyone pancakes in his underwear with bruises on his knuckles and love bites all over.  
  
“Not a bad night,” Harry says, smiling sleepily at Zayn. He gestures with his spatula to where Liam is curled up against the opposite arm rest, fast asleep.  
  
Zayn smiles back. “Nah, not bad.”

 

**Chapter 11.**

  
It all starts with an offhand comment while Louis is lying dazed on his living room floor, his brain a mess of post-orgasm delirium.  
  
“That was fun,” he says to no one in particular. He feels like he may have rugburn in the morning.  
  
“Yeah?” Harry says, rolling onto his side to perch his chin on Louis’ chest. Harry came first this time, so he’s had more time to recover.  
  
“Yeah,” Louis says sleepily. “It’s fun with you.”  
  
It’s something he’d probably never say in his right mind, but he’s too sapped of energy to care at the moment.  
  
“Good,” Harry says.  
  
Louis reaches up and tangles his hand in Harry’s hair, scratching lazily against his scalp. Harry smiles, closing his eyes and leaning into the touch.  
  
“It’s been a long time since I had fun with this, actually,” Louis comments.  
  
Harry frowns without opening his eyes. “Why?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Louis says. He can feel his eyelids getting heavy, and he gives up all hope of making it to the bed. He’ll deal with the back pain later. “Just stopped trying, I guess.”  
  
It’s just a small admission in a moment when his guard is down. He doesn’t mean anything by it, honestly, but he should have known that Harry would take it as a personal challenge.  
  
He’s sitting in his classroom a few days later, engrossed in a book while his students take an exam, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text message from Harry, and he smirks a little at the screen when he reads it.  
  
 _can’t wait to see you later sweetcheeks :) let’s order food and stay in, i’m feeling toppy today x_  
  
It’s not unusual at all for Harry to get a bit suggestive in the texts he sends Louis while he’s working. He likes it, actually, likes the thought of Harry sitting in the studio at school waiting for his prints to dry, typing cheeky things to Louis while surrounded by other students. Louis’ own students are currently absorbed in their exams, too intimidated by his ironclad anti-cheataing policy to let their eyes stray far.  
  
He thumbs open the reply box.  
  
 _are you? ;) x_  
  
He puts his phone back down on the desk and returns to his reading. The minutes pass quietly, and Louis is so distracted by his book that he almost misses Harry’s reply when it comes. He opens up the message with the hand that’s not holding his page, skims it, and promptly knocks over his tea.  
  
 _gonna fuck you while you suck on my fingers like you don’t know if you’d rather have my cock in your arse or your mouth xxxxx_  
  
Louis swears under his breath, scrambling for stash of fast food napkins in his desk drawer as his entire class looks up to see what the commotion is.  
  
“Sorry!” he says, voice higher than usual. “Minor tea disaster! Finish your exams!”  
  
He makes a frantic sort of shooing motion at them and starts trying to mop up his tea before it soaks through all the papers on his desk, mentally cursing the day that Harry Styles was born as he goes. When he’s satisfied the situation is contained, he pulls the message up again and types out a reply without daring to glance up to reread.  
  
 _harold pls_  
  
That night they order in Thai and Harry makes good on his promise, fucking Louis into the mattress with two fingers in Louis’ mouth. It’s good, and it’s fun, and Louis realises that Harry’s doing this on purpose. He’s trying make things fun.  
  
It’s a realisation that makes his heart do weird things in his chest when he’s lying in bed that night, and he can’t afford to let himself think about it too deeply. He can deal with it as long as it’s a game, like the two of them running up and down the pitch at midnight. He can handle competition. Hell, he’s good at it. And he is not about to let this incident go, for lack of a better word, untopped.  
  
He plans his next move carefully, choosing a home football match that he knows Harry’s been anticipating for weeks. He’s been to enough games by now to know exactly when to make his way down the stands, when the team has cleared out of the locker room for good to finish warming up before the game starts while Harry is the only one left inside.  
  
Harry looks up from his clipboard when he hears the door open and smiles when he sees that it’s Louis. Louis had been counting on that, knowing that Harry is always so pleased when Louis comes to his matches that he’d never suspect nefarious purposes. Sometimes he thinks his line of work underutilises his specific skill set. Maybe he’d be better suited for war strategizing, or professional chess. Sexy, sexy chess.  
  
“Hello,” Harry says. “Come to wish me luck?”  
  
Without further ado, Louis knocks the clipboard out of his hands, shoves him back into the lockers, and wipes the smile off his face.  
  
The kiss is rough, dirty, and Louis knows he’s caught Harry completely off his guard by the way his hands cling helplessly to his shoulders. Harry’s mouth is open in shock, and Louis takes advantage and pushes his tongue inside. Harry makes a noise high in his throat and kisses him back, ever the quick study, and Louis doesn’t waste any time, grinding his hips hard against Harry’s. They make it another minute, all tongues and teeth and hips, and then he feels Harry already half-hard against him and starts unfastening his trousers.  
  
“Louis,” Harry says, turning his head away from the kiss. It turns out to be a grave mistake on his part, because Louis uses the opportunity to move his mouth to that place on the side of Harry’s neck that he knows drives him absolutely mad. “Louis,” he says again. He’s trying so hard to keep himself together, but his hands are tugging on Louis’ hair in a way that means he wants him everywhere but off. “I’ve got to be out there, like, now.”  
  
“I know,” Louis says. He leans up and kisses Harry again, biting down on his lip as he finishes undoing his trousers.  
  
Harry breaks off, face flushed. “What are you doing?”  
  
“I’m living out every changing room fantasy I’ve ever had,” Louis says, and then he’s on his knees, and he knows Harry can’t say no, not when he puts it like that.  
  
He makes it last long enough that Harry’s swearing at him and bucking shamelessly into his mouth, too hot for it to stop but desperate to finish before the game starts. Every time Louis can tell Harry’s about to come, he pulls off and kisses him, letting him taste himself as he growls and whines for Louis to  _please, God, almost there, you fucking bastard_. When he finally does come, it slams out of him, leaving him boneless and dazed and barely able to support himself against the lockers.  
  
Louis just wipes his mouth politely on his sleeve, drops a chaste kiss on Harry’s slack mouth, and strolls toward the door.  
  
“Good luck!” he tosses over his shoulder cheerfully, and then he’s gone.  
  
He takes the steps up the stands two at a time, feeling supremely pleased with himself as he settles back down into his seat. When Harry jogs out onto the field a few minutes later, he’s only a little red around the cheeks, hair damp on the back of his neck in a way that only Louis could see for what it really is. The head coach doesn’t tell him off for being late, but he doesn’t look happy about it either. Harry glances up to the stands, and Louis waves pleasantly to him.  
  
He’s definitely, definitely going to pay for this one later. But it was worth it.  
  
His time of reckoning comes a week later. They’ve both got to go to some faculty retreat on a Saturday, mostly just a four-hour seminar on grade scales and team building in the reception hall of some hotel. It’s boring as hell, but at least Harry and Zayn and Niall are there too, and there’s a free buffet at their lunch break, so he can’t complain. Harry wanders off while Louis is busy piling food onto his plate, and he’s just tucking into his fish filet when his phone goes off.  
  
The screen announces it’s a call from Harry, and Louis furrows his brow, wondering what reason Harry could have possibly found to call him since he last saw him five minutes ago.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says when Louis answers. Louis can hear his voice echoing faintly and knows he must be in the men’s room, which, what the hell.  
  
“Can I help you?” Louis says, rolling his eyes.  
  
“Dunno, it depends,” Harry tells him. “What are you wearing?”  
  
“Are you serious?” Louis says a bit too loud, and half the table full of teachers turns to look at him. He switches gears, trying to play it off as some kind of professional phone call. “I believe you already know the answer to that question.”  
  
“Too many clothes, that’s what,” Harry says, voice slung low, and Louis bites down on the pulse of heat that sends through him. “Although I do appreciate the way your arse looks in those trousers.”  
  
He purses his lips, keeping his face resolutely neutral. “Thank you.”  
  
“You look so gorgeous today, Lou,” Harry continues. “Makes me wanna put my mouth all over you.”  
  
“I’m, uh,” Louis stammers, and Zayn is definitely staring at him across the table now like he knows something isn’t on. “I’m not sure that’s feasible at this moment in time.”  
  
“Wish I could be sucking you off right now,” Harry says. “I love having your cock in my mouth.”  
  
Louis swallows. “The feeling is mutual, I’m sure.”  
  
“I love it when you pull my hair when I’m going down on you,” Harry goes on. He’s speaking the way he always speaks, long and loose and impossibly slow, and it’s nearly unbearable when he’s saying things like that. “I love it when you come down my throat. I love it when you fuck my mouth, and then the next day my lips are all red and my voice is shot and everyone can tell what I’ve been up to.”  
  
Louis can feel his face burning at this point, and he has to close his eyes for a moment to compose himself, silently praying to whatever cruel god controls his life for his erection to go back down just as fast as it came up. He clears his throat. “Is that so,” he chokes out.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says. “God, I want to fuck you so bad right now.”  
  
“I’m sure, ah,” Louis says, crossing his legs uncomfortably, “I’m sure I could fit you in at some point.”  
  
“ _Jesus_ ,” Zayn groans, pushing his chair out and walking off to the buffet. Louis wants to crawl under the table and die.  
  
“I bet you’re hard right now,” Harry is saying on the other end of the line. “I bet you’re sitting there in front of everyone thinking about letting me fuck you, and you’re so hard in your posh trousers that all you want is for me to tell you to come in here so I can suck your cock. That what you want me to do, Lou?”  
  
Louis is seriously going to throw himself in front of a train. “Yes.”  
  
“Hmm,” Harry says, “too bad.”  
  
And then he hangs up.  
  
Louis just stares at his phone for a full minute, unable to deal with what just happened to him. Ambushed by phone sex. Phone sex ambush.  _Public_  phone sex ambush, in front of everyone he works with. If he lives through this, he is going to make Harry wish he hadn’t.  
  
Harry comes bouncing back up to the table a minute or two later, smiling like an innocent little cherub as if nothing at all has happened.  
  
“Hi!” he says, dropping down into the seat next to Louis and slapping his upper thigh in a way that he must known is excruciating. “Did you miss me?”  
  
And, yeah, he is an absolute shit, and Louis wants to throw his drink at him or brain him with a dessert plate, but mostly he just really, really wants to have sex with him. It’s almost annoying how nothing ever tops how much he likes Harry, how much he wants to touch him and be around him and make him laugh. And fuck him. That too.  
  
Louis suffers through the rest of the day by spending as much time with Zayn and Niall as possible, but it’s all he can think about, a constant recording of everything Harry said playing on loop in his head. At the end of the day, it’s finally just the two of them while Louis gives him a ride back to his flat. Louis makes it about ten minutes out with Harry sitting in the passenger seat singing along to the radio before he snaps and pulls over into some isolated back alley.  
  
He doesn’t even give Harry a chance to ask what he’s doing, just unbuckles his seatbelt and leans across the console and yanks Harry into a punishing kiss.  
  
He breaks off quickly, finding his patience at its absolute end.  
  
“Get. In. The back.”  
  
Harry complies without hesitation, thankfully, and they have sex in the backseat even though Harry’s too tall for Louis’ tiny car and Louis’ too worked up to last long. There’s a late February chill in the air, and by the time Harry comes, the windows are all so fogged from their body heat that Louis can’t even see through them. Harry laughs and draws a smiley face on the glass, and Louis feels younger than he has in years.  
  
It goes on like that for weeks, the two of them competing to see who can come up with something better or dirtier or more ridiculous. Louis retaliates for the phone sex by surprising Harry with a blowjob while he’s on the phone with Gemma, and the next day while they’re at school late afterhours putting the first coat of paint on some of the set, Harry strips him down right there on the newspapers and leaves green and yellow handprints on his back. It escalates, one thing after another, desks and bathrooms and emails Louis has to delete as soon as he reads because they’re too filthy to risk anyone else seeing them. Louis knows he’s being reckless, but most of the time he’s enjoying himself too much to care, and when Harry laughs as he comes, it’s hard to think about what could go wrong.  
  
It’s the parts in between, though, that are really starting to get to him. Zayn’s been his best friend for years, but there’s this other space that Harry fills in that’s just as close. With the exception of one time when Louis finds out what having a grope in a supply closet is really like, Louis’ free period is still an hour of ribbing and laughing and Harry forcefully importing Beyonce’s entire discography into his iTunes. Some days they don’t have sex at all. Sometimes they only touch each other in little brushes or slaps, only smile at each other over curry. Some nights they just fall asleep on the sofa halfway through whatever they’re watching, Louis exhausted from work and rehearsals and Harry catching up for how early he always has to get up for class.  
  
One day Harry has to shoot some landscapes for a project, so they take a day trip to a beach a few hours away, Harry riding along with his hand out the window. Louis half expects him to turn it into some kind of mad road trip sex extravaganza, but it turns out to be just the two of them and huge skies and the Beatles on the radio. They leave their shoes in the car and walk up and down the beach barefoot, just talking, and then Harry gets out his camera and Louis gets to watch him at work. Harry’s always taking pictures, but usually they’re just for himself, just because he wants to. This is Harry really getting serious, lining up his shots carefully, a little crease of concentration between his eyebrows, and it’s kind of fascinating. Louis sits on the rocks and watches, happy to be there and to be with Harry. They swagger back the the car as the sun sets with their arms around each other, and Louis kisses him then, because he’s only human and Harry looks sunned and glorious and made to be kissed.  
  
There are days like that, days when Louis is so happy that he feels like his guard is starting to slip. He tries to hold that feeling down with both hands, but it’s not easy. More than once he contemplates skiving off for the day and calling a supply teacher so he can surprise Harry at school, thinking of how nice it might be to sit under the trees with Harry’s head in his lap. He catches himself in a moment of weakness looking at toothbrush racks with space for two toothbrushes instead of one, and he abandons his shopping in the middle of the aisle and takes himself home immediately.  
  
The game continues, though. At some point, sometime after the time in the bathroom of Zayn’s flat and the heavy petting behind the science building, there are a few days of quiet, and Louis thinks maybe it’s finally over. He’s almost grateful, because he’s supposed to be getting his cast off-book by the end of the week, and it’s getting harder to concentrate on things that aren’t Harry.  
  
He should have known better than to let his guard down, though. He’s in the middle of a rehearsal when a text from Harry comes in, and he knows he should probably ignore it, but he can’t.  
  
 _got a surprise for you when you get home ;) xxx_  
  
It’s not the first time Harry’s let himself in and waited for Louis to get out of rehearsal. Harry can’t always be there to help, and besides, he technically isn’t needed for when they’re just running through scenes and songs, so it’d probably start to look a bit off if he kept showing up just to hang around Louis. Louis started keeping a spare key under the mat a few weeks ago, since rehearsals have started running later as it gets closer to opening night. He knows, logically, that it would be easier to just give Harry a key, but he knows what that kind of gesture means and he just. Can’t do that.  
  
Louis texts him back, keeping an eye on his Rizzo as she walks through her choreography.  
  
 _i’ve got a few more hours here, sorry :( x_  
  
It’s past ten by the time he gets everything sorted and locked up, and the drive home seems to last forever. He makes himself take the steps up to his flat at a normal pace, forcing down the anxiousness ringing in his ears. Harry knew what he was doing when he sent that message, knew it was going to wind Louis up, and this is a game, after all. Louis intends to win, whatever that means.  
  
He hesitates for a second at the door, unsure of how to prepare himself, before finally letting himself in.  
  
There, on his sofa, is Harry, watching telly and slouching over a bag of crisps, wearing a French maid costume.  
  
Louis just stands there in the doorway, staring at him.  
  
“Hello,” Harry says casually, scratching his head. The frilly little headband he’s got on shifts a little in his curls. Louis is sleeping with an idiot.  
  
“Really?” is all Louis can say.  
  
“I was dusting earlier, but you took too long and I got bored,” Harry tells him. He shoves another crisp into his mouth and stretches. “I guess you win this round.”  
  
Louis buries a laugh in his hand. “Where did you even  _get_  that?”  
  
“Already had it,” Harry says with a shrug, and he  _would_. Louis should have known. If anybody has got a French maid costume stored in their wardrobe for no good reason, it’s Harry. “Fancy dress party a couple of years ago. It was quite the hit.”  
  
Louis rolls his eyes and drops his bag by the door before wandering into the kitchen. Harry follows him without purpose, leaning against the fridge, watching Louis get a kettle ready.  
  
He looks at Harry standing there in his kitchen, scratching his stomach through his absurd costume, and he wonders if he’s losing his mind, because it actually looks good on him. The plunging neckline is obviously meant for cleavage, but on Harry it just draws the eye to the lines of his collarbones, the hollow of his throat, the hard planes of his chest. The corseted waist makes his shoulders look impossibly broad and his torso look even more impossibly long, tapering down to narrow hips and the slim sway of his back. He’s far too tall for the skirt so it barely covers half of his arse in the back, and Louis can see lacy white knickers underneath.  
  
Harry catches him looking and winks, cocking one hip out to the side, which, wow, nope.  
  
Louis turns away with a shake of his head, reaching for a mug. “Are you just going to keep that thing on all night?”  
  
“Why?” Harry purrs in his best mock-sexy voice. He bends over and plants his hands on the kitchen table, arching his back and thrusting his arse up in the air like he’s posing for a pin-up. “Do you like it?”  
  
And God help him, yes, he does like it. He has no fucking clue why, but for some reason that tiny bit of white lace on Harry’s football-toned arse is doing things for him that it really shouldn’t be. But more than that, he likes Harry, unbelievable Harry who put that thing on because he knew it would make Louis laugh. Louis’ never really had somebody like Harry in his life, someone who just likes to make him happy and stops at nothing to do so, who gives him things like this. Part of him wonders if this is where the two sides come together, if this is where sex and whatever you call the other thing between them overlap into something bigger, if that’s what’s been happening all along.  
  
“Maybe I do,” Louis says.  
  
Harry lowers his lashes, playing exaggeratedly coy. “Then why don’t you do something about it?”  
  
Louis looks at him, at his pink lips and his legs that go on for days, and he knows that Harry’s won.  
  
Harry watches as he takes his glasses off and leaves them on the counter, and then Louis’ moving forward and Harry’s turning to meet him and they snap together like gravity. It’s always like that with the two of them, push and pull until things line up just right. He can feel Harry smirking against his lips, and Louis bites down on it until Harry’s mouth falls open and he can get his tongue inside.  
  
He pushes Harry backwards by the shoulders and follows with his own body, laying him out flat on his back across the table. One of Harry’s legs comes up to hook around him, and Louis reaches up to hold Harry’s hands above his head, keeping him pinned with hands and mouth and hips. Harry uses his leg to leverage his body up into Louis, rolling his hips, and Louis bites off a kiss to swear into the side of Harry’s neck.  
  
Not to be outdone, Louis shoves one hand under Harry’s skirt—Harry’s  _skirt_ , honestly, this is going into the Louis Tomlinson Sex Hall of Fame as the most ludicrous fucking thing he has ever been turned on by—and wraps it around Harry’s cock. He’s more than halfway hard, trapped inside the thin material of the knickers, and he moans around Louis’ tongue at the touch.  
  
Harry kisses him like he always does, like it was his plan all along, and Louis finds that it still hasn’t gotten any easier to handle. He’s not quite sure how Harry, flat on his back in a ruffly outfit, manages to make him feel like  _he’s_  the one completely out of control. He moves his hand up higher, flattening his palm over Harry’s stomach before reaching into the knickers to stroke him properly. The damp lace rubs against the inside of his wrist as his hand moves, and Harry’s grinding his hips in earnest now, matching Louis’ pace.  
  
This is good, but he wants more, wants Harry begging and filthy, wants to make him feel something he’s never felt before. He wants to do things he hasn’t wanted in so long, and it scares him, but he wants it so badly.  
  
He pulls his hand out of Harry’s ridiculous skirt and steps back, and Harry makes a noise of confused disapproval before Louis grabs his shoulders.  
  
“Thank God,” Harry says, letting Louis turn him around, and Louis still can’t quite get over how eager Harry always is for him. He widens his stance, letting Louis’s knees fit between his, and that would be it for Louis if he didn’t already have something else in mind. Instead, he smooths a hand over the silk covering Harry’s hip and down the side of one thigh, then sinks to his knees.  
  
“What’re you—” Harry starts, looking over his shoulder, but Louis presses his mouth against the lace fabric of the knickers and Harry’s voice dies in his throat.  
  
“Trust me,” Louis says, and Harry is bent over Louis’ kitchen table wearing a damn French maid costume, but somehow when he nods in response, for a moment the look in his eyes manages to be completely serious.  
  
Louis pulls his eyes away from Harry’s, focusing on pushing the skirt up and hooking his thumbs around the top of the knickers. The lace feels so delicate under his fingers, and Louis can’t make sense of why it turns him on so much. Maybe it’s just that almost nothing about Harry is delicate, not even the curling corners of his mouth or the way he looks when he wakes up in the morning. He’s all boy limbs and wild hair and heavy eyelids, but then there’s these frilly knickers and there’s that look of trust in his eyes and Louis doesn’t know what else to do but give him everything he can.  
  
He tugs the knickers down just far enough and drags his fingertips over the exposed skin, feeling goosebumps rise under his touch. He can feel the tension in Harry’s muscles, the anxious restraint of waiting for Louis to close the space between them, and Louis wonders if anyone’s ever done this for Harry before. He hasn’t done it himself in years, not since the first boy he ever fell in love with. He hasn’t wanted to do it since, but he wants to do it to Harry. God, he wants it.  
  
He leans in and ghosts his mouth over Harry’s balls first, because that’s safe, they’ve done that before. Harry shivers at the heat of Louis’ breath, so close but not quite touching him yet, and when Louis finally presses his lips against the sensitive skin there, he can hear Harry swallow a small whine. It’s getting to him, Louis can tell, the anticipation of what he’s about to do, and Louis can’t suppress a grin at that. This round may go to him after all  
  
The first time his tongue makes contact with Harry’s skin, he can feel it roll all the way down Harry’s spine. His hands move from Harry’s thighs back up to his arse as he works with the flat of his tongue, and, fuck, he knew Harry had a thing for his mouth, but his hips are already shifting restlessly and Louis hasn’t even gotten to the good part yet.  
  
He drags the tip of his tongue up with agonizing precision, spreading Harry apart with his thumbs, until finally, finally he hits his destination. Harry gasps and swears at the same time, a breathless, shuddering  _fuck_ , and Louis slides his tongue over the spot again, teasing.  
  
“Jesus,” Harry grinds out, and Louis can tell how much it’s costing him to just stand there and take it. “ _Lou_.”  
  
Louis keeps moving, palming the swell of Harry’s arse as he draws circles with his tongue. He can tell by the way Harry can’t stop squirming that this has to be his first time, and that just gets Louis even hotter, knowing nobody else has ever made him feel this way. This is  _his_. He darts his tongue out and just barely breaches him, and Harry’s hand slams down hard on the table, a groan tearing out of his throat.  
  
Part of him wants to make Harry talk again, wants to listen while he tells him exactly what he’s feeling, but the fact that Harry hasn’t said anything else in minutes is doing enough for him. He glances up for a moment and Harry’s got his chin tucked against the lace ruffles on the shoulder of his stupid costume, turned as much toward Louis as he can manage, hair falling in his face and his mouth moving wordlessly. The realisation that Harry can’t, physically  _can’t_  say anything goes straight to his dick.  
  
He starts working Harry open with his tongue, feeling himself getting harder with every pleading noise out of Harry’s mouth. He slides one finger up alongside his tongue, swirling it through the wetness there before pressing in gently. Harry pushes back into it, desperate for something more, and Louis slides his tongue farther inside.  
  
His own spit is enough to get Harry started, but he’s going to need more than that if they’re going to really get anywhere. He leans back just far enough to open the rubbish drawer and snag the tube of lube in there, popping it open and skipping right over the part where he wonders how he got to the point in his life where it’s necessary to keep lube in every room of his flat.  
  
Harry watches over his shoulder, and Louis makes deliberate eye contact with him as he slicks his fingers. It’s killing him, Louis knows, not being able to touch him at all, to have to hold himself back. Louis thinks about teasing him again this time, but he knows he can’t. He’s too far gone now.  
  
He pushes two fingers inside, fast and easy, and Harry’s hips jolt forward at the sudden fullness. Harry’s already pretty slick, and Louis knows it’s not going to take much longer to get him ready, can already feel his body giving him more room to work with. It’s just as well, because Louis’ still fully clothed and he can feel his shirt starting to stick to his back and if his cock doesn’t get some attention soon he’s probably going to die. He works in a third finger and sets a quick rhythm, and Harry rocks back into it, angling his hips so that Louis’ fingers drag across the right spot every time.  
  
“Lou,” Harry says, finally finding his voice again, “please, Lou, I wanna touch you.”  
  
Louis closes his eyes, taking a steadying breath, and slides his fingers out.  
  
“Get down here, then.”  
  
The last thin cord of Harry’s self-control snaps at his words, and suddenly he’s being knocked backwards, Harry’s hands coming up to fist in the back of his hair as he crushes their mouths together. He lands sprawled on his back with Harry straddling his hips, and he’s been in this position before, but he never really imagined it would happen again on his kitchen floor with Harry dressed as a French maid. Harry sits up, dragging his hands down to Louis’ chest and sliding his braces off his shoulders. His headband is hanging off the right side of his head.  
  
“You look ridiculous,” Louis says.  
  
Harry just smiles down at him and, God, Louis doesn’t remember how to want anything else. “Only for you,” he says.  
  
He bends and kisses Louis again, making it last while he tugs Louis’ shirttails out and gets the buttons undone. Neither of them really have the patience to get Louis all the way out of his shirt, so Harry just leaves it open and switches his attention to getting his trousers out of the way. He manages to deal with the fastenings without taking his tongue out of Louis’ mouth, but then he pulls back just as he’s about to get his pants down.  
  
“Er, hang on,” Harry says, getting clumsily to his feet. Louis is about to protest when he’s confronted with the sight of the knickers sliding down Harry’s long legs and he decides that he should probably just shut up forever. Harry steps out of them and kicks them off to the side before climbing back down on top of Louis, bare arse settling on Louis thighs, and Louis has never hated trousers so much in his life.  
  
Harry finds Louis’ waistband again, and Louis feels like he could cry from relief when Harry’s hand finally closes around him. Harry gives him a couple of rough jerks just to tease, and Louis figures he probably deserves that much, but then he’s lifting his arse up to pull Louis’ trousers and pants down farther and Louis feels the cool tiles under his skin.  
  
Harry reaches behind them and extracts the lube from under the table, wasting no time before slicking Louis up. Neither of them are going to last long, and they both know it. Louis’ just glad Harry’s already open and ready, because he needs to be inside of him, like,  _right now_. Harry lifts himself up and takes a hold of Louis’ cock, and Louis grabs onto his thighs to steady him.  
  
“Ready?” Harry says, looking him straight in the eyes.  
  
Louis digs his fingers into Harry’s skin. “Yeah.”  
  
Harry sinks down in one continuous, controlled motion, eyes shut and mouth hanging open as Louis slides into him. It’s so good, that first tight push and then the smooth heat after, and Louis wants to throw his head back and let the feeling take over but he can’t tear his eyes away from Harry. He sees the moment when he hits that spot inside of him, sees Harry’s breath hitch and his chest strain at the silk, and then he bottoms out and Harry’s arse hits his thighs.  
  
They stay like that for a moment, Harry’s hands braced on Louis’ chest and Louis trying to catch his breath, and then Harry rolls his hips, and every nerve in Louis’ body flashes white hot.  
  
It’s frantic after that, both of them swearing and gasping and moving together. Louis’ hands move from Harry’s thighs to Harry’s arse, sliding up under the skirt and guiding him to meet each thrust. Harry leans back, supporting himself on hands, and the view is something Louis knows he’ll never forget as long as he lives, the long line of Harry’s body and the muscles in his shoulders, black silk and white lace and the way his throat moves every time Louis pushes back in. He can’t actually see the place where their bodies meet, blocked by Harry’s skirt, but somehow that makes it even better.  
  
He can feel his orgasm starting to build low in his gut, and he wants Harry with him, wants them to tip over the edge together. He shifts one of his hands off of Harry’s arse and brings it around to the front, and when he grabs his cock, Harry jerks forward, body curling over Louis in a tight arc. He sinks his fingernails into Louis’ shoulders as Louis’ hand moves under the skirt.  
  
“Close,” Harry pants, dropping his head down to kiss Louis’ neck messily. “So close, Lou.”  
  
“Come on,” Louis says, and it’s too much, he can’t make it any longer, can’t feel Harry tight around him and wet on his throat and hard and heavy in his hand any more, “come on, Haz.”  
  
He gives his wrist one more twist and Harry goes tense and it hits them both at the same time. Louis’ hips buck up off the floor and he comes with a shout, and Harry’s right there with him, face buried in his shoulder.  
  
It feels like it takes them ages to come back down. When Louis’s brain starts functioning again, he realises that Harry has collapsed on top of him. He knows this not just because of the weight and the feeling of wet silk sticking to his stomach, but because there is a doily headband poking him in the face.  
  
“That,” Louis says finally, lying on the kitchen floor mostly clothed with a grown man wearing a French maid costume in a sex coma on his chest, “was unexpected.”  
  
“You’re telling me,” says Harry’s voice from somewhere in the vicinity of his shirt collar. Harry moves at last, rolling off of Louis and onto the floor next to him. He stretches his legs out and smiles at the ceiling like he’s content with the cosmos. “Lacy knickers. Duly noted.”  
  
“Shut up,” Louis says.  
  
They manage to get up eventually, after few more minutes on the floor trying to summon up the energy to move. Harry pulls the dress off over his head and Louis shucks his clothes the rest of the way off and they leave it all in a pile on the bathroom floor. They shower and brush their teeth together and then Louis turns off the lights and they fall into bed.  
  
It’s been a month or so since Harry started sleeping over like this, and it’s not like it was something Louis had ever planned on. He just remembers one night in his bed, fucked out and happy and tucked up warm against Harry’s chest, hearing himself say, “Stay.” And Harry did.  
  
Tonight, Harry presses a soft, minty kiss to his lips and settles in behind him, and Duchess curls up between their feet. Louis realises as he feels Harry’s body relax into sleep against him that he has no idea which of them is winning.

 

 

 

**Chapter 12.**

All right, so maybe “complete fucking imbecile” was a bit harsh, and maybe “if I wanted this kind of incompetence I’d pay my fucking cat to do it” had been a poor choice of words. Maybe Louis had gotten just a little carried away. Really, though, Louis maintains that if the twat had done his job in the first place it wouldn’t even be an issue, so he’s still the victim in this case.  
  
Regardless, the fact remains: it’s two weeks before opening night of  _Grease_ , Louis only has half of a set completed, and his set designer just told him to go fuck himself.  
  
This is not good. This is very, very bad.  
  
He sends out a school-wide notice in the mid-morning announcements that there’s a mandatory cast and crew meeting in his classroom during lunch period that day and spends the rest of the morning trying not to lose his bloody mind. He concentrates on poring over the plans for the set instead, writing down what’s been done and what still needs to be done, making list after list after list and praying to the gods of amateur theater that his budget can handle this.  
  
Finally lunch comes and everybody’s piled in—even Harry and Zayn and Niall standing up in the back—and he steps up to the front and clears his throat.  
  
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” Louis says. “You’re all looking fresh-faced and lovely today.”  
  
A laugh ripples through the crowd, and on the other side of the room Harry flips his hair with a wink. Louis has to make a conscious effort not to smile back at him. He’s a  _professional_ , dammit.  
  
“I’m sure you’re all curious as to why I’m stealing your precious lunch time away from you, so I’ll get right to it,” Louis goes on. “I spoke with Mr. Collins, our set designer, today. You may have noticed that he has not quite been keeping up to the construction schedule. Unfortunately, due to the fact that he is an incompetent  _idiot_ ,” Louis takes a breath before continuing, “he will no longer be working with us.”  
  
By the fact that nobody leaps out of their desk in sheer panic, Louis can tell that no one in the room has any idea the magnitude of what this means for them.  
  
“Also unfortunately, I don’t have anyone else to do this, so I am going to be taking over as set designer as well,” Louis tells them, pacing in front of his desk. “That means from here on out, if I’m not in here, I’ll be in the theatre working on the set. Thankfully most of the biggest structural pieces have already been built, but there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. So I’m calling you lot in.”  
  
He reaches down onto his desk and picks up the plans for the set, rolling it out against the board and taping the corners up. He’s got a three dimensional model in the theatre, but this will do for now.  
  
“I’ve outlined the parts that are already completed in red,” Louis explains, pointing to the different levels and platforms he’s marked off. “These bits have been built but not painted or dressed for the stage. That’s most of the big stuff. But then there’s this.” He grabs a sheet of paper off his desk and sticks it up on the board next to the plans, dragging his finger down the page to show how much he’s written on it. “This is a list of everything else. We’ve got a fair bit of prop furniture already, but we still have windows to line and doors to hang and a couple of fake cars to build, and then  _everything_  has to be painted and dressed, front and back. On top of that, we’re replacing two of the lighting trusses, which is going to require a lot of lifting.”  
  
Louis takes a step back, letting everything sink in for a moment before pacing back in front of his desk. “We’ve got two weeks until opening night and one week until the set needs to be structurally complete so that we can do blocking rehearsals and full run-throughs on it. We’ve got the plans, we’ve got the materials, we’ve got the manpower. I know at least a few of you have taken enough wood tech to know how to handle a nail gun without killing anyone. I hate to ask you all to do this, but I need your help. I’ve seen all of you at rehearsals. I know you care about this play, and I know you want it to be great as much as I do. So, what do we think? Show of hands? How many of you think you could find time come in and work on the set?”  
  
Louis raises his own hand and holds his breath, hoping for at least a dozen who’ll be willing to maybe give up an afternoon or two to help out. What he gets instead are dozens of hands going up all over the room, extras and leads and prop wranglers alike. And along the back of the room, Harry and Zayn and Niall have got their hands in the air too. He forgets sometimes, he guesses, that he’s not all alone in this.  
  
“Brilliant,” Louis says, beaming.  
  
He pins a schedule and a signup sheet up by the door listing the times and days that he’ll be working, and everybody writes their names in on the way out, filling up the pages with promises to help. He also announces that even though they’ve already got a nine-hour rehearsal this Saturday, he’s adding a set construction party on at the end of it. Everyone seems to take the news in stride, bless them.  
  
After rehearsal that night, he drives home alone, parting ways with Harry in the carpark. Going home with Harry would only result in sex, which probably would at least give him some of the relaxation he sorely needs, but he needs to sleep more. Harry gives him puppy eyes as he gets into his car, but Louis can tell his heart’s not really in it. Harry’s dealing with a full courseload, working a job, and helping out on the musical. He probably needs rest even more than Louis does.  
  
Since sex is off the table—literally and figuratively—Louis makes do with his next-best relaxation technique: wine and reality television. It’s stood by him for years now, and it won’t fail him now. He settles into his couch with a bottle of Shiraz, Duchess, and a stress headache that ought to disappear once he gets two or three glasses in.  
  
Louis’ mobile rings while he’s in the middle of screaming at the X Factor. Normally this would be cause for him to ignore it, but when he checks the screen it’s Stan calling, which means Stan’s in the middle of doing the exact same thing.  
  
He picks up the call and shouts “Are you  _seeing_  this shit?” down the line, foregoing any normal greeting.  
  
“I’m seeing it, but I don’t fucking believe it!” Stan yells back. “She was the best thing this show has seen in years, there’s no way she could have gotten voted off. No fucking way.”  
  
“Not unless this country is even stupider than I thought,” Louis says, picking his wine glass up off the table and taking a long drink. “This is bullshit.”  
  
“Total bullshit,” Stan agrees. “God, I’m not sure I’ll even finish this series now.”  
  
Louis just laughs, watching the end credits roll. “Yeah, you will.”  
  
Stan chuckles back. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Still, I’ll watch it resentfully. If that bastard with the highlights wins I’ll put a foot through my telly.”  
  
“Fine,” Louis says, leaning back on his couch. “But don’t come crying to me afterwards, asking me to record episodes of Top Gear for you.”  
  
“On my honor,” Stan says. Louis can hear him take a bite of something and chew it before he continues. “Well, Lou, since I’ve conned you into getting on the phone with me through the clever ruse of reality telly, feel like updating me on your life? Which I know nothing about?”  
  
Louis runs a hand through his hair and laughs at that. He can’t deny it, he’s been busy as all hell since—well, as long as he can remember, honestly, but especially lately. He can’t remember the last time he and Stan caught up, and he’s quietly thankful for friends who take the time to track him down when he wanders off.  
  
“What do you want to know?” Louis asks, knowing that Stan will hear the  _whoops, my bad, sorry I’m a twat_  in his voice.  
  
“What’ve you got to say?” Stan replies, and Louis lies back on his couch. It’s gonna be a while.  
  
He talks about his classes, telling stories of particularly horrendous answers to exam questions and that time one girl fainted during an improv exercise and no one realised she wasn’t acting for about five minutes. He talks about that awful week where his piece of shit car broke down—again—and he had to face the horrors of public transport. He talks about the play, and about Duchess, and about his mum. He talks about Zayn, and Zayn’s continuing pursuit of Liam, which Stan supports for unfathomable reasons. He almost brings up the bar fight incident, but then remembers how that particular fiasco started and decides to leave it out.  
  
He leaves Harry out entirely, actually, remembering Stan’s searching remarks at Christmas and knowing that his voice will give him away if he brings him up at all. In fact, he’s in the middle of silently congratulating himself on his admirable self-censorship when Stan’s voice breaks his thoughts.  
  
“So you’re still seeing that Harry, then?”  
  
Louis splutters and nearly knocks his wine to the ground. Only his many years of couch-drinking experience save him. “What? How did—what?”  
  
“Well,” Stan says, “If you weren’t, or if things had gone bad at all, you’d have spent this entire phone call complaining about it and moaning about how you’re right and love is dead and why won’t anyone listen to you, blah blah blah, kill me please. And you’re not, which means things must be good still, yeah?”  
  
Louis winces to hear himself so concisely summed up. Is he really that boring? “Yeah, things are still. Uh. Happening. Still feeling positive about that whole situation.”  
  
Stan snorts. “Well say hi to your ‘situation’ for me then, yeah? You should bring him ‘round to Doncaster sometime, I’m sure your family would love to meet him.”  
  
“We’re not really—we don’t do that sort of stuff, really,” Louis says, doing his damnedest not to think about Harry in his mother’s kitchen. “It’s still a casual thing, if you can even call it a thing.”  
  
“Well, whatever it is, or isn’t, or however you’re being stupid about it, I’m glad,” Stan says, with the sort of tired honesty that he’s gotten awfully good at over the years. “You sound really good, Lou. I mean it.”  
  
“Yeah?” Louis says, not really able to respond otherwise.  
  
Other people he can brush off, but not Stan. Stan  _knows_  things, okay. Especially about him. One day in sixth form Louis had shown up to school and Stan had known Louis’ cat had died without Louis even telling him. It’s freaky and probably the only way Louis actually knows anything about himself.  
  
And it’s not just that, either. It’s that Stan is probably the only person in the world who knows every single part of Louis’ life before he packed up and ran from Doncaster, all the things between eighteen and twenty-two that turned his insides dark and sour. He’s probably the only person who really, properly knows what it would mean for someone to make Louis happy. He is the only person who really gets the importance of that.  
  
So if Stan thinks Harry is good for him, maybe there’s something to it.  
  
“Yeah,” Stan says. “I don’t know, you sound more excited about your life than I’ve heard you in a long time. Getting laid by a very nice and very fit young man probably helps with that, though I can’t be sure.”  
  
“Fuck off,” Louis laughs down the line, but, well. It’s not like he’s wrong. “You sound good too, man, you have any secret people I should know about?”  
  
“Nah, I’m still waiting for you to make an honest woman of me,” Stan jokes, and Louis is never going to go this long without talking to him again.  
  
The two of them stay up talking until midnight, Louis making occasional forays to the kitchen for things to snack on while he talks. The rest of the conversation is made up mostly of ranting about things on telly and inside jokes, most of which Louis couldn’t explain to an outsider if he tried, the kind of rambling conversation that goes on for hours without anybody even noticing. It’s nice, talking to Stan, because he doesn’t have to try. It’s easy and it’s just for the two of them. If he’s honest, being with Harry feels that way a lot of the time, and maybe that’s how it’s so easy for Stan to pick up on whatever it is he has with Harry—he already knows what Louis’ like when he’s comfortable with someone.  
  
He’s in the middle of reliving some embarrassing thing that happened to Stan when they were fourteen when his phone chimes against his ear, and he switches to speaker so he can check the text that’s just come in. It’s from Harry, and he feels himself smiling before he even opens it.  
  
 _was just in the shower and almost slipped and killed myself because i remembered that thing you said about avocados the other day and couldn’t stop laughing, just wanted to use this opportunity to remind you that you’re hilarious and i like you a lot and also that i am naked right now ;) xx_  
  
Stan must hear the pleased sound he makes, because there’s a knowing tone to his voice when he asks, “Anything you want to tell me about?”  
  
“Nope,” Louis says smugly, which is an answer in and of itself. Stan just laughs, and Louis grins back even though Stan can’t see him.  
  
“Whatever you say, Lou,” Stan says. “All right, I’m looking at the time, and I should probably let you go so you can rest up for whatever fresh hell you’re gonna cause tomorrow.” Louis glances at his phone and murmurs an assent. He hadn’t realised how late it was. “It was really good to talk to you,” Stan continues.  
  
“Likewise,” Louis says, and means it. “And I promise I’ll be less of a shit and not leave it so long until we talk again.”  
  
“You’d better, you dick,” Stan says cheekily. He pauses then, and Louis can hear him thinking. “And seriously, it’s good to hear you sounding so happy. Take care of yourself, Lou. Just, like, let yourself be happy a little, yeah?”  
  
“You’re going soft on me, Stanley,” Louis says, but he’s smiling.  
  
“Shut up,” Stan says. “You’re the worst.”  
  
Louis hangs up laughing and pads into the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for bed. Duchess is sitting on the counter next to the sink, and she nuzzles her head into Louis’ stomach.  
  
“Hi, babe,” Louis says, rubbing his thumb between her ears. She purrs, and Louis smiles, and when he looks up and sees his reflection in the mirror, he almost doesn’t recognize the person looking back at him.  
  
The person looking back at him in that moment isn’t miserable and tired and tense. He’s softer around the edges, warmer in the eyes, happier. He looks younger, with shoulders that don’t look so weighed down. He looks  _good_.  
  
He thinks back to what Stan said, _let yourself be happy a little, yeah?_  and he thinks that if this is what Harry does to him, maybe he doesn’t need to be so scared. When he looks at it that way, from where he’s been lately, it’s not so hard to see. Something that brings these old, dusty parts of him out again for the first time in years can’t be that bad, right? This whole time he’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop and telling himself that as long as he keeps things under control it won’t hurt when Harry inevitably gets sick of him, but what if that doesn’t happen? What if Harry doesn’t leave?  
  
Louis closes his eyes and turns on the faucet, listening to the familiar creaky pipes through the walls, and he decides to stop thinking for the night.

✖

  
  
Saturday rehearsals are always, always madness. There’s some kind of specific hysteria about a Saturday rehearsal, like summer camp and a graveyard shift and cabin fever and  _musical theater_  all rolled up into one big ball of crazy. He always looks forward to them even though they’re grueling, because it always feels good to get so much done at once. And also they’re madness, and there’s always something hilarious, and they all get to take a break halfway through to sit around on the stage eating delivery pizza together.  
  
Louis misses that about performing, the whole aspect of being a part of the team. Technically the director is still part of the team, but there’s something about being a gear in the machine, something about the way you connect with people when you’re all on the same level trying to create something together, that’s just unlike anything else. He misses feeling the kind of camaraderie that comes with late nights of marathon rehearsals and performances in the middle of a bunch of your mates. He misses being a part of something bigger than himself.  
  
It’s almost as good, though, to feel like he’s giving that to his kids, so he’ll manage. Besides, he’s got a job to do and a show to put on and a goddamn set to finish.  
  
The rehearsal is slated to last from nine in the morning to six in the evening, which means Louis will have the kids for four hours before he’s no longer allowed by the school to keep them there. That’s four hours to get as much work as he possibly can done while he’s got the maximum amount of manpower. In addition to the cast and crew, Niall’s pulled some of the orchestra kids and Zayn’s pulled some strings with the art club and Harry’s managed to sweet talk a few of the footy boys who aren’t already in the play. He wants to say that his friends are independently incredible, but he’s also offering free all-you-can-eat pizza to everyone who comes to help, so he doesn’t think the students are acting solely out of the goodness of their hearts.  
  
He pulls one of the orchestra kids aside at one point, one of the section leaders, to thank them for helping out, and the curly-haired girl just looks at him with confusion in her eyes. “He asked us to,” she says, pointing at Niall. “He’s a legend, we’d do anything he asked.” Louis makes a mental note to ask Niall how he can turn his students into good little soldiers as well.  
  
The one person who is acting out of the goodness of his heart is Liam, who texted Zayn earlier in the week to tell him that he finally has a day off this weekend and ask if Louis still needs his help. Zayn has been anxious about it all week, though he’s been surprisingly quiet. Louis assumes he must just be dealing with it by writing odes to Liam’s compassionate soul in the moleskine he keeps inside his leather jacket or something. He can only imagine what Zayn is going to do when Liam shows up in the flesh that night, as was the agreed arrangement.  
  
That’s later, though, and for now Louis just needs to focus on the actual rehearsal. He can use the prospect of laughing at Zayn as the carrot to get him through what promises to be a very, very long day. The extra help isn’t supposed to arrive until six, but Harry, Niall, and Zayn will be around all day trying to make as much progress on the set as they can on their own while Louis oversees the rehearsal itself. They aren’t getting the costumes in until Monday, but at least he’s had the whole cast off-book for weeks and hardly anybody is tripping over themselves during the dance numbers anymore. The play itself is looking great, and he feels incredibly grateful for the cast and crew that he has. If he had an extra pence in his budget, he’d buy them a cake or something.  
  
Right, then. Nine o’clock. Louis heaves a sigh and abandons the prop table he’s been fussing over backstage.  
  
As he steps out from behind the curtain, he surveys his domain. The pit is full of Niall’s orchestra minions warming up, bless their hearts. He can’t imagine that any of them care about him, particularly, but he’s pretty sure they’d follow Niall to the gates of hell, and they’ve turned out in droves. If he shades his eyes, he can make out Niall and Harry in the sound booth in the back, fiddling with the controls for the lights. Zayn has a backdrop spread out on the floor and is setting out paint cans and rollers. The cast and crew are milling about, looking half-awake but at least present and alive, which is good. All goes according to plan. Louis makes a contented noise and walks to center stage. Time to go to work.  
  
And, honestly, the rehearsal goes as smoothly as Louis could ask. It’s everything he remembers Saturday rehearsals to be, but his cast is just so solid that even with all the chaos, he only has to correct them a few times and for the most part can just let them get as many reps of the show as they can fit in nine hours. He has to hand it to Stuart for taking his assignment as male lead to heart and assuming leadership of the cast, because his energy is infectious and he makes everyone around him even better just from playing off of him. He’s all over the place, prompting lines when other actors drop them and helping Harry’s football lads when they’re struggling with a complicated part of the choreography. Louis sees him leading Mike Kendall through a particularly complex set of steps and feels very proud indeed.  
  
All the while, parts of the set are slowly coming together around them. Harry and Niall have all the lighting trusses ready to go up as soon as the stage is done being used for the day, and Zayn has finished a lot of the basic painting and moved on to details and shading. He has Harry somewhere backstage trying to finish up one of the prop cars now while Niall is busy going over a few changes in the arrangements with the band. It’s coming together, and Louis hasn’t caught his breath yet, but he’s starting to feel like they’re really going to pull this off.  
  
Zayn disappears around half five, and Louis finds him in the boys’ dressing room, leaning into a mirror and fiddling frantically with his hair. Right, he’d almost forgotten. Liam’s supposed to be arriving in thirty minutes.  
  
He leans in the doorway, watching the sad spectacle. “Preparing to storm the beaches, babe?”  
  
“Shut up,” Zayn says without even sparing him a glance.  
  
“If he likes blokes I promise he already wants to fuck you,” Louis says, and Zayn rolls his eyes, “and if he doesn’t, the right hairstyle isn’t going to change his mind.”  
  
Zayn purses his lips in the mirror. “It calms me down,” he says, turning and brushing past him to the door. “And you know this isn’t about trying to fuck him. This is romance, Tommo.” He waggles his eyebrows and then disappears backstage.  
  
“If anybody shags on my set I’ll have your balls, Malik!” Louis shouts after him.  
  
Hearing a soft gasp behind him, he turns to look at the shocked-looking year ten who just walked out of the women’s dressing room. “Shouldn’t you be in the orchestra pit? Go on,” he says, making shooing motions with his hands. She scurries off with a squeak, looking somewhat scandalised.  
  
Louis wraps up rehearsal at six with a speech about how proud he is of all of them and a fifteen minute break before divvying up projects between the students and setting them to work on the set. A decent number of Harry’s boys show up, as well as more of Niall’s orchestra kids and Zayn’s art club recruits, and altogether they have a pretty sizable team. The artistically inclined kids get put on painting duty, while anyone capable of lifting helps to get the lighting trusses mounted and the rest are handed staple guns and hammers and measuring tape.  
  
Aside from the hour Zayn spends sulking after Liam texts that he got called in unexpectedly and won’t be able to come until later, it’s a productive night. Louis is feeling pretty confident by the time he gathers the kids for one more “massive thank you” and dismisses them.  
  
It doesn’t last, though. Once the kids are gone and it’s just the four of them left, everything is open in front of them and it’s clear to see how fucking much they still have left to do. How is that even possible? How can there still be so much left? Is this some kind of cosmic joke? Do two more unfinished set pieces spring up every time they finish one? Will it ever be done, or will he die of exhaustion and old age first? If the prop cars were fully functional, Louis would be seriously considering lying down in front of one and begging Harry to run him over.  
  
He looks at Zayn, who looks at Niall, who looks at Harry, who looks back at him, and they all just sort of stand there, looking at the set. Just. Looking at it.  
  
“Shall I order more pizzas, then?” Niall says.  
  
And that’s how they wind up sprawled out on their backs an hour later, half-eaten pizzas strewn all over the set and not a single inch of progress since the kids left. Louis is lying across the soda bar they built for the diner scenes with his head pillowed on a pile of fabric that needs to be turned into curtains at some point. He may never move from this spot.  
  
Of course, it’s then that the theatre doors swing open and the cavalry arrives.  
  
“Hello!” Liam announces, tromping up to the stage with a smile. “Sorry I’m so late!”  
  
He’s got on a plaid flannel over a white undershirt and work boots and he looks fresh as the fucking morning dew. He’s not wearing a tool belt, but he does have a battered canvas and leather tool bag slung over one shoulder. Zayn seems too exhausted to do more than turn an unattractive shade of red and choke a little on his mouthful of pizza.  
  
Louis sighs. He really was looking forward to giving Zayn shit all night, but he’s just not sure he has it in him anymore. He feels exhausted and slightly inadequate just looking at Liam, and it’s using up the last of his energy.  
  
Liam is standing in front of the stage now, smiling around at all of them with his hands clasped in front of his chest. Nobody moves.  
  
“Where d’you want me to start?” he asks Louis.  
  
“I don’t know,” Louis says, more to the cosmos than to Liam himself. “I don’t even know.”  
  
“Sorry,” Zayn says, having cleared the pizza from his windpipe. “We’ve been at it since nine this morning. We’re a bit dead.”  
  
“It looks great, though!” Liam says. He hops up on the stage, and this close Louis can feel the energy radiating off of him. It hurts. “A few more hours of work and it’ll be done.” All four of them groan at that.  
  
“Aw, come on,” Liam says. “It won’t be that bad. We can make it fun! Here, we’ll start with this—” He walks over to an unfinished prop table and picks up one side. “Niall, grab the other end, yeah? Niall?”  
  
Niall just stares at him.  
  
“Zayn, collect your person,” Louis says. Zayn just sort of flops an arm out ineffectually.  
  
“All right,” Liam says, dropping his bag on the stage and bending down to unzip it. “I suspected this might be a problem. Luckily, we have a way of dealing with this sort of thing in my line of work.”  
  
Liam pulls a six pack of Red Bull out of his bag and plunks it down on the stage in front of him.  
  
Well. That’s an interesting turn of events.  
  
Several cans of Red Bull and forty-five minutes later, Louis has to admit that he’s caught a second wind. And a third. And a fourth. He’s a fucking tornado, actually, and so are the rest of them, hyped up on the combination of chemicals and exhaustion and each others’ energy. Louis is half-heartedly trying to figure out the schematics for the set, but it’s pandemonium and Niall is literally in the rafters and there are grease stains everywhere and Harry’s throwing pizza at people.  
  
“What a shot!” Louis says, manic in his announcer voice as a piece of pizza collides with the side of Zayn’s face. “Directly into the face of Zayn Malik! Excellent form!” The slice slides off Zayn’s face and lands cheese side down on the floor. “And he sticks the landing! Oh, that’s gonna be a big score right there!”  
  
“I’d like to thank my mum,” Harry says, covering his heart with one hand. Somewhere up above, Niall has starting singing God Save the Queen. “And also Louis Tomlinson, whose arse has inspired me even in my darkest times.”  
  
“And here I thought it was my sparkling personality,” Louis says.  
  
“Lou, there isn’t a human alive with a personality that outdoes your arse,” Harry says with a wink. “Sorry to disappoint.” Louis schools his face into faux-disappointment before going for the nipple pinch, pleased when Harry squeaks and smacks his hand away.  
  
Louis looks around for another victim and spots Zayn at the side of the stage, scrubbing the pizza sauce off his face with a napkin and sporting a look on his face that’s an equal mixture of blind canine affection and utter panic. Louis strolls over to get a better look, but things aren’t any less dire up close.  
  
“What’s that look on your face?” Louis says, squinting at Zayn and poking his cheek. “You look like you’re trying not to throw up poodles.”  
  
“Louis,” Zayn says. “Liam is here.”  
  
“Yes, I know, Zayn,” Louis says. “He’s been here for like an hour.”  
  
“No, but, like,” Zayn says. “He’s  _here_. And, with the, the tools. And the building things. Oh my God.”  
  
“Are you having a stroke?” Louis says as Zayn’s knocks over his second paint can in the last ten seconds. Zayn seems to have lost control of his hands. Also his face. Is it normally possible to look terrified and aroused at the same time?  
  
“He’s so fit,” Zayn says. “He’s so fit, and I think the Red Bull is giving me heart palpitations, and I’m going to die. And he’s so lovely, and good with his hands, and building things, and  _oh my god whatthefuckisthat_.”  
  
Zayn’s voice ascends into a pitch audible only to some dogs, and Louis looks over his shoulder to find Liam fastening a tool belt around his hips after apparently digging it out of his bag. The belt matches the boots. Oh, Louis is going to mock Zayn about this for  _weeks_.  
  
“I,” Zayn says, and then all that comes out is an incoherent series of wheezing noises. Louis plucks up the the spray bottle full of water amidst all the painting supplies and shoots him full in the face.  
  
“Pull yourself together,” Louis says while Zayn sputters and wipes his face on his sleeves.  
  
“Hey, Zayn,” Liam calls over to them, and Zayn freezes. “Wanna show me where that part you need sanded is?”  
  
“Yes!” Zayn says, scrambling to his feet.  
  
“Yeah, I bet you do,” Louis mutters as Zayn scurries off to lead Liam onto the stage, shooting a slightly homicidal look back at him. Louis sticks his tongue out at him and considers telling him that he’s got a streak of paint across his face, but decides against it. Because it’s funny. And because he’s distracted by Harry’s hands on his waist and his chin hooking over his shoulder.  
  
“This is the best,” Harry says, snickering. “This is even better than the car wash, and we didn’t even have to do anything. Did you see Zayn’s  _face_? Dibs on best man at the wedding.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Louis laughs, turning around and leaning up onto the balls of his feet to get right up in Harry’s face, Harry’s hands still at his waist. “That spot’s mine, you interloper. I’ve known Zayn way longer than you. You can’t just swoop in and displace me. We have  _history_.”  
  
Harry grins wickedly. “True, but I’m clearly more supportive of their epic romance. Plus,” he adds, leaning in close to Louis’ ear, “you’d look way better than me in a bridesmaid’s dress.” He dances away from Louis’ playful slap, hopping down from the stage and bouncing off toward the utility closet.  
  
“Where are you going?” Louis asks, unable to wipe the smile off his face. He does have the legs to pull off a dress, it’s true. Then again, he’s not the one with a history of skirt-wearing.  
  
“I’m going to go turn up the heat,” Harry whispers. “See if we can’t get that flannel off.”  
  
Louis throws his head back and laughs. “You’re a bad man, Harry Styles.” Harry just winks and jogs away.  
  
As always, Louis takes a moment to admire the view, and then turns back towards the stage to observe the wreckage. Zayn is pointing out the areas of a prop door that need to be sanded down so that none of the actors impale their hands on splinters. Liam nods seriously, taking some sandpaper out of his toolbelt and goes to work. Louis can see the appeal, he really can, with Liam’s shoulders and rolled up sleeves and adorable scrunched up face, but he can’t say he understands Zayn’s reaction to it, the way he hasn’t moved from Liam’s side and is staring unblinkingly at his hands. He appears to remember himself after about fifteen seconds of mouth-breathing and snaps out of it, retreating back to painting backdrops on the other side of the stage. It’s not much of an improvement, as he doesn’t seem to be able to go a full minute without looking back up at Liam.  
  
Liam, for what it’s worth, seems to be entirely focused on fixing the prop door, showing not even a hint of awareness of Zayn’s eyes on him. They’re well-matched in obliviousness, then, as Zayn appears to have no idea that his left knee has been sitting in a tray of paint for the past minute and a half. He’s going to have absolute kittens when he realises he’s ruined those jeans, Louis thinks, but right now he probably wouldn’t notice if he actually had actual kittens. Liam shrugs off his plaid shirt—Harry will be so pleased—and Zayn makes a sound like a cat being put through a garbage disposal. Louis can hear it from halfway from across the theatre, but Liam doesn’t even look up, apparently too focused on the task at hand. Louis wants to donate him to science.  
  
There’s only so much time he can waste on observing Zayn’s complete hopelessness, though, so soon he’s back to stitching together curtains and making sure that the steering wheels on the prop cars can actually turn properly. Harry finishes running through lighting cues and comes back to join them onstage, nudging Louis excitedly and pointing out Liam’s decrease in clothing with nothing even approximating subtlety. Zayn breaks out of his reverie long enough to notice it, and throws a rag that catches Harry right in the face, leaving streaks of blue paint across his cheek. Harry just throws it back and goes to work on the platforms for Beauty School Dropout.  
  
After another hour or so of frantic work, Louis can feel his energy flagging and cracks open another Red Bull. Zayn seems to be crashing as well, as he flops onto his back in the middle of stage and starts moaning. “There’s too much,” he says, staring up at the stage lights. “Death would be kinder.”  
  
“Death, Zayn, really? That can be arranged,” Louis says, taking a gulp of Red Bull. Murder would require more energy than he has right now. “Is that what you want? Is that what you  _really_  want?”  
  
“Yo,” Zayn says, and a smile starts creeping up his face. “I’ll tell you what I want. What I really, really want.”  
  
Out of nowhere, Harry’s upper half flops down over the edge of the piece of set he’s working on and he fixes Zayn with an upside-down look. “So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”  
  
“I’ll tell you want I want, what I really, really want,” Zayn shoots back, scrambling up to his feet.  
  
Niall throws down his paintbrush dramatically. “So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”  
  
“I wanna  _ha_ ,” Zayn says, thrusting his hips, “I wanna  _ha_ , I wanna  _ha_ , I wanna  _ha_ , I wanna really really really wanna zigga-zig  _ahhhh_.”  
  
Before Louis even knows it’s happening, all of them have launched into a chorus of, “ _If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,_ ” and then Zayn is jumping up to falsetto to echo, “ _gotta get with my frieeeends,_ ” and they’re in five part harmony as if by natural instinct. Harry jumps up to his feet to gyrate his hips and Niall sashays over to Liam and Louis sings along as loud as he can, “ _Takin’ is too easy but that’s the way it is!_ ”  
  
Suddenly one voice rises up on top of the other four and Louis stops dancing when he realises it’s Liam, one foot propped up on a crate of paint, singing his heart out to, “ _Whatcha think about that, now you know how I feeeeel, say you can handle my love, are you for reeeeal..._ ”  
  
Louis eyes find Zayn, who has dropped his can of paintbrushes all over the floor.  
  
“Holy shit, man,” Niall says. “You can sing.”  
  
Liam blushes pink, and Louis feels a sympathetic pang for Zayn at how darling it is. “Thanks, mate.”  
  
“No, like, you can  _proper_  sing,” Niall says. “That’s impressive.”  
  
“I’m not as good as Zayn or anything,” Liam says. Zayn sort of stands there, staring at Liam and wordlessly moving his mouth like a dying fish, until Harry has the mercy to drop one the old bedsheets they’ve been using as a drop cloth over his head.  
  
After that it’s singalongs for the rest of the night, all five of them falling into harmony with each other on everything from The Beatles to Kanye to Bieber. Louis had been on board with having Liam around ever since Christmas, but it feels more like he really belongs now, with Niall goading him into a Buble duet and Harry clapping excitedly when he reveals he can beatbox. He’s always thought of Zayn’s fixation as an amusing pastime, but he finds himself actively hoping it works out. It’s a nice thought, the idea of Liam and Zayn and him and Harry, with Niall the madness holding them all together. It feels like it could work. Then again, he’s imbibed enough chemicals to fell a small horse, so who knows what he’s thinking.  
  
Still, time goes much faster with all five of them working together, and they don’t quite finish everything, but they finish enough. So when Harry tells Louis he needs to go home so he can get a couple hours of sleep before he’s supposed to go make prints of a project, Louis doesn’t even panic about how much still needs to be done and just ruffles Harry’s hair instead. Liam needs to go too, as it happens, and Louis pretends not to hear Zayn’s quiet whimper when he takes his toolbelt off and puts it back in his bag. He’ll save that particular bit of humiliation for when he really needs it.  
  
“Right then,” Harry says, smiling as he leans down to peck Louis on his paint-streaked forehead. “Good luck with the rest of it, babe.”  
  
He joins Liam and sets off up the aisle toward the main exit, and Louis watches him and the way his hips swing and the way the lights of the theatre fall on him, and it’s just. It’s just.  
  
It’s just that sometimes he looks at Harry and he feels like Harry’s so much more than a boy. Like he goes on forever and ever. It’s just that sometimes he wants to take every stupid love song he’s ever heard and rewrite them all so that they’re all about curly-haired boys that smell like grass and then sing them until his lungs give out. It’s just that sometimes when he wakes up in the morning with Harry’s arm around his waist and Harry’s nose buried in the nape of his neck he thinks he’s closer to the person he wants to be. It’s just that he’s delirious and happy and it’s four in the morning and sometimes it feels like Harry’s the best thing in the entire fucking universe.  
  
Sometimes he just has to do something about it.  
  
“Hey, Styles!” Louis calls after him, hopping down off the stage.  
  
Harry turns around and stops between rows I and J. He smiles when he sees Louis coming, and that’s pretty much it, Louis abandons all dignity and breaks into a run halfway up the aisle, until he gets to Harry and grabs his face in both hands and kisses the living hell out of him.  
  
It’s a perfect kiss, a movie star kiss, Harry’s bag falling to the floor as he wraps his arms around Louis’s waist and Louis on the tips of his toes. Louis kisses him like a hero home from war, like the big fermata at the end of a grand finale, like everything warm and huge pent up inside his chest.  
  
He didn’t think kisses like this ever actually happened in real life, at least not in  _his_  real life, and maybe it’s just the energy drinks or the delirium, but it feels like the best kiss anybody in the world has ever had. Normally this would be the part where Harry would pick his feet up off the ground and spin him around or something, but Harry seems a bit too dumbstruck for that and Louis is in complete control, bending Harry over him and arching his back up into it. It’s an absolute showstopper.  
  
When he pulls back and opens his eyes, Harry is speechless, looking down at him with a dazed sort of smile and lidded eyes and paint in his dimples. Louis smiles back and gives him a little slap on the bum for good measure, feeling very pleased with himself indeed.  
  
“Now you’re allowed to leave,” Louis tells him.  
  
“Okay,” Harry says slowly, still staring at Louis like he can’t quite believe his fucking luck. He picks up his bag and sort of toddles off up the rest of the aisle, smiling back over his shoulder at Louis and then bashing his knee against an armrest in the process.  
  
Behind him, Niall and Zayn have started up a slow clap, and he can hear Zayn wolf whistling. Liam intercepts Harry at the back of the theatre where he’s been watching the show, looking amused and fond, and Louis mentally sends him a thousand blessings for being the type of lad who can appreciate that kind of thing. He pats Harry on the back, and Harry just sort of shakes his head and smiles down at his feet and lets himself be led out.  
  
When Louis turns back around, Niall and Zayn are still cheering from the stage. He takes an elaborate bow and makes his way back down to the front of the theatre, grinning and grinning and grinning.  
  
“You’ve got to teach me how to do that one, Tomlinson,” Niall says.  
  
“Get yourself a tall gentleman suitor to snog first,” Louis tells him, popping his bottom up on the edge of the stage.  
  
“Fair enough,” Niall says.  
  
Louis lets out a great lungful of air and falls backwards onto the stage, closing his eyes against the stage lights. He feels somebody flop down on top of his stomach, and he can tell by the volume of hair brushing against him and the faint smell of a two-paycheck bottle of Gucci cologne that it’s Zayn.  
  
“Louis,” he says, grabbing a fistful of Louis’ jumper sleeve. “ _Looouuuuuiiiiiiis_.”  
  
“ _Zaaaaayn_ ,” Louis says back.  
  
“Louis,” Zayn whines again. “Do you have  _any idea_  how good you’ve got it? I would  _kill_  to have somebody who looks at me the way Harry looks at you.”  
  
Louis feels his face go hot, but he keeps his eyes shut, smiling up into the rafters.  
  
“I swear to God, Louis,” Zayn goes on, rolling over dramatically so that his face is smushed into Louis’ chest and kicking his feet against the stage, “I’d give  _anything_. Don’t let that shit go to waste, all right? Fucking  _tell him_  how you  _feel_ , man.”  
  
“Mate, Zayn is being an obnoxious cunt, but I’ve got to side with him on this one,” Niall agrees from somewhere amid his nest of pizza boxes. “This is getting ridiculous.”  
  
“Thanks, man,” Zayn says. “I guess.”  
  
And for once, Louis doesn’t immediately recoil at the thought. Because the thing is, things have been so  _good_  lately, and it’s started to seem like it might not be the absolute end of the world if he just sort of... let himself. If he let himself fall into this, if he maybe moved things somewhere more like relationship territory. He’s been thinking about it a lot lately, more than he’d ever admit, and he’s started to wonder if maybe he’s finally, finally ready to try again.  
  
It’s all just been theoretical up until now, just hypothetical little scenes in his head when he’s not being careful, but he lost all control hours ago and there’s nothing to stop him now. Eyes shut and sprawled out on the stage, it all plays out in his head, anniversary dinners and Harry with Daisy on his lap Christmas morning and himself three years from now wearing one of Harry’s jumpers, little snapshots of a life that he just might be lucky enough to have. And right now, it’s hard to remember exactly what part of this is the part that scares him so much.  
  
He doesn’t know how he feels about Harry, not for sure. He hasn’t been anywhere close to where he needs to be to process those things long enough. But soon, he thinks. Maybe after the play is over and he has some time to clear his head and figure some things out, maybe he can talk to Harry. Maybe it could be okay. Maybe it could be  _amazing_.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Louis says. “All right. Maybe I will.”  
  
He bites his lip, and Zayn gives up a weak, “Yaaay.”

 

 

**Chapter 13.**

Despite all of Louis’ prayers, despite his cries to the heavens and sleepless nights and serious considerations of making an offering to Satan, it finally arrives: tech week. One week until opening night, and there’s so much to do that he can’t run more than halfway through the list before getting a sudden urge to drink himself into a stupor. There’s not enough time. There is mathematically not enough time to finish everything before the curtain has to go up. This is the show he’s wanted to do since he knew he wanted to put on shows, and nothing is finished, and he has a week. It’s a constant presence at the back of his head, buzzing around his brain when he’s supposed to be lecturing on Chekhov and reminding him that he can’t relax.

 

He can’t fall into a blind panic, though, at least not in front of his cast and crew, because teenagers can smell weakness. The second he cracks, they’ll all scatter, and the musical will fall apart—possibly literally in the case of the set decoration—and he’ll never be able to set foot in the school ever again. And then he won’t have a job and he’ll have to move back in with his mother and even Duchess will think he’s too pathetic to spend time with and all right maybe he needs to stop shotgunning Red Bulls.

 

He has to end the first dress rehearsal on Monday at nine, sending the kids home, but he stays late organizing costumes and fixing prop furniture that’s one misplaced kick away from collapsing into a heap. Harry stays with him, and to be honest he’s not much actual help, but his voice is soothing and keeps Louis from ripping out his own hair, so he’s useful even if he occasionally gets in the way.

 

Two hours pass, and Louis is seriously considering pulling an all-nighter when he feels arms wrap around him from behind. “You’re done for the night,” Harry rumbles into the back of his neck.

 

“Am not,” Louis says, squirming a little but finding Harry’s arms unyielding. “I’m fine, Haz, let go.”

 

“You’re not fine,” Harry says, squeezing tighter. “You were just mumbling to yourself about outlawing poodles.”

 

“Fucking poodle skirts,” Louis growls. “Make no sense. Terrible animal. Let go of me.”

 

Unfortunately, Harry doesn’t seem to follow his logic, as his response is to lift Louis off the ground and start carrying him out of the backstage area and into the theatre. “You’re definitely going home.”

 

“Put me down, you ruffian!” Louis yells, flailing ineffectively. Normally he only has lovely things to say about Harry’s arms, but this is not one of those times. The futility of his situation becomes clear, and he finally gives up, going limp and pliant. “Okay, Styles, you win. If I promise to leave in fifteen minutes, will you let go of me and let me close up before you drag me out of here like a caveman?”

 

Harry sets him down on his feet. “I’m starting a timer now. Fifteen minutes exactly, or next time I’m knocking you out first.”

 

So that’s how Louis finds himself leaving school with not nearly enough done on Monday night, feeling like he should panic but not quite being able to fight through the fog of his exhaustion long enough to feel much of anything at all. He and Harry walk through the carpark together, but when he starts to head towards his own car Harry grabs him by the wrist.

 

“Not a chance,” he says, pulling him away. “There’s no way I’m letting you drive when you’re like this. You can crash at mine.”

 

“But—” Louis says, trying to remember how to use words in order to articulate all of the things that are wrong with this. “What about—”

 

“We’ll get up early tomorrow,” Harry says, pulling Louis towards his car. “I’ll drive you to yours, you can change and feed Duchess, it’ll be fine.” He lets go of Louis long enough to open his passenger side door. “Get in the car.”

 

And Louis doesn’t know if it’s because he likes the attention or because he’s too bone-tired to fight back or because Harry might actually have a point, but he gets in the car and lets Harry take him home.

 

Harry makes him an omelette and prods him into the shower and doesn’t complain when Louis shamelessly steals all the blankets in the middle of the night, and Louis honestly doesn’t have the energy to worry about what it means that he’s falling asleep in Harry’s bed wearing a pair of Harry’s boxers with Harry’s head on his chest. He’s working himself to death, and if leaning on Harry means that he doesn’t actually die, well, that’s better than the alternative, right? Plus, he likes it, and it’s nice, so fuck everything else, honestly.

 

So this becomes part of tech week routine, too. Louis works as long as he can get away with before Harry takes him home to his flat. Harry’s place is so small that Louis should get bored within five minutes, especially since he barely has the energy for goodnight kisses let alone for sex, but somehow it works. Harry cooks something simple and they eat together quietly, maybe kicking each other under the table, and then they curl up in Harry’s bed—well, on his mattress—and pull up something on his laptop to watch until they fall asleep.

 

And then it’s the morning and coffee and frantic driving and Louis running into his flat for ten minutes to put on clean clothes and pacify his cat while Harry sits with the car idling outside. Harry lives closer to the school anyway, and he drops him off early enough that nobody’s around to notice their arrangement, and it works.

 

If Louis is honest, it’s nice to have a routine even just for a couple of days, to not have to think about what he’s doing for a few hours out of the day, even if he’s hideously behind on his marking and his car has been sitting in the school carpark for days. Rehearsal is still a nightmare even with a cast that mostly knows what they’re doing, a constant barrage of questions he either doesn’t know how to answer or shouldn’t have to, and he deserves not to be losing his mind every single waking moment of the day.

 

And truth be told, it’s kind of nice to hang out with Harry again and just be mates. Sure, sometimes Louis thanks him for dinner with a kiss, or maybe Harry will give him a smack on the arse when he gets out of bed, but it’s mostly the two of them just… being together. They shoot the shit and watch funny videos of cats and argue about whose radio station to listen to in the car, and it’s good. It’s nice, that the sex hasn’t ruined the friendship. Thing. Whatever it is. Louis’ kind of surprised, when he thinks about it, but he’s glad. That doesn’t mean he isn’t planning on fucking Harry’s brains out the second the show is done, of course, but it’s still cool that sex isn’t all they know how to do. Their relationship, whatever it is between them—it’s not just a sex thing. Given the sappy, speculative thoughts that have been running through his brain lately, that’s a very good thing.

 

It’s like Harry’s flat is insulated from all the static of worry that buzzes in his head, like it’s a safe place, just for them. Louis doesn’t realise how accustomed he’d gotten to it—after only three days, Jesus Christ—until Wednesday night, when Harry gets a call on his mobile while Louis is doing the dishes.

 

Harry’s face lights up when he looks at the screen, and he leaves off from drying a bowl to answer it, mouthing an apology at Louis. “Claire!” he says down the line, sounding thrilled. “What time of night do you call this, then?”

 

Louis keeps working on the dishes, trying and failing not to eavesdrop. From what he can tell, Claire is a friend from uni, another photography student if Harry’s complaints about their module today are anything to go by. “Like, I know critique is supposed to be brutal, right, but today was ridiculous. I felt so bad for Gary, he looked like he was going to cry,” Harry says, walking in slow circles around the flat. That’s the last thing he says that Louis really understands for a while, as Harry falls into a string of photography jargon that he can’t make heads or tails of.

 

Scrubbing hard on a pan, Louis tries his best not to listen. He forgets, sometimes, that Harry has a life outside the school. A life outside of when Louis sees him, or when he’s here in this flat. A life that Louis is completely incapable of keeping up with, but that Claire down the phone apparently knows well enough to make Harry laugh uproariously. And Louis can make Harry laugh, too, can make him do a lot of things if he puts his mind to it, but it’s strange to think that there are parts of Harry’s life that are completely inaccessible to him. Parts that are important. Harry knows everything about Louis’ work, about what he loves to do, and Louis doesn’t know the first thing about what Harry wants to do with this life. He hasn’t really thought about that, and he doesn’t particularly care to now.

 

It sounds like the conversation is winding down, finally, which is good, because Louis has run out of dishes to wash and has started drying them himself in an effort to keep busy. “Yeah, I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything,” Harry says. “Should be sooner rather than later. Fingers crossed, yeah?” He chuckles at something she says, and then continues. “Thanks. All right, I’ve gotta run, yeah? I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay. Bye,” and then he hangs up.

 

He walks back into the kitchen and takes the dishtowel from Louis, picking up where he left off. “Sorry ‘bout that, she had a question about the assignment for next week.”

 

“S’fine,” Louis says, maybe a little more shortly than he means to. He opens the fridge and pulls out a beer, grabbing a bottle opener from the drawer to the right of the sink. Opening the bottle with a hiss, he drops the opener back in the drawer and leans against the counter, picking at the bottle’s label idly.

 

“She’s nice. You’d like her,” Harry says, glancing over his shoulder before going back to the frying pan he’s currently drying.

 

“I’ll bet,” Louis says, and all right, even he knows he sounds like a snide piece of shit right now. It’s just that all he can think about is that Harry’s classes are probably full of people who know more about what Harry cares about than he does, and he’s not sure who exactly to be mad at about it.

 

Harry turns around and leans back against the sink, and Louis is prepared for him to be angry, but that’s not what’s playing out on his face.

 

“Are you jealous?” he asks, looking thrilled. “Of Claire? I mean she’s a lovely girl and all, but she’s very much in love with her girlfriend and I’m very much not interested anyway.”

 

“No, I’m not,” Louis says, staring at his beer. He wishes he were just jealous, because it doesn’t make him feel much better to think of how many people there are out there who Harry doesn’t even fancy who are probably still more interesting than he is.

 

“You are,” Harry says, tilting his head to the side.

 

“I am not jealous,” he says, but this time he grins through it. It’s a good lie, a better cover than he could have come up with himself. It’s not like he hasn’t gotten jealous before, hasn’t done stupid shit because of it.

 

“It’s all right if you are, you know,” Harry says, nudging into Louis’ space, grazing his fingers over Louis’ and pulling the beer out of his hand gently. His eyes are wicked. “I think it’s hot.”

 

Louis stares at him a moment, lets out a growl, and pounces. Maybe he doesn’t know a thing about Harry’s life outside these four walls, he thinks, his teeth on Harry’s collarbone and his hand down his jeans, but he’s still the resident expert on this. Later, when the two of them are lying in bed chasing sleep, he runs two fingers over the mark he left there on Harry’s shoulder and thinks he maybe is an artist, after a fashion.

 

Then it’s Thursday, meaning it’s the final dress rehearsal, meaning Louis’ life is one long coronary that isn’t even kind enough to let him die. And it’s okay. It could be much worse. The kids are trying so hard, and they have almost everything together. Dress rehearsal honestly does go better than he would have predicted a week ago. Louis’ just incapable of not seeing every little thing that’s still wrong, everything that could fuck up when it matters most. Stuart might not hit that high note in Summer Nights, or the T-Birds might flub their choreography again, or Melanie might put her catsuit on backwards like she did in one particularly disastrous run-through.

 

Then again, there’s a certain serenity in knowing that it’s too late to do anything about it now. Tomorrow is the assembly show for the school, then opening night for the parents in the evening. If everything is going to collapse, Louis doesn’t have enough time to stop it. If he’s doomed, he’s doomed. He wonders if this is like how people feel really warm right before they freeze to death.

 

“Nobody’s going to die,” Harry says, because Louis is tired enough that he’s spouting his last-minute fatalistic bullshit to him as Harry drives them home. “Everything’s going to be fine, and everyone will applaud your brilliance.”

 

“You have to say that,” Louis grumbles. “You’re just afraid I’ll murder you. I know where you sleep.”

 

“Yeah you do,” Harry says with a suggestive tone, and Louis lets out a slightly hysterical giggle.

 

They sit in silence for a while, Harry driving smoothly around the almost-empty late night streets, before Louis feels a sudden urge to say something. Normally this doesn’t happen to him sober, but he supposes that he’s probably tipsy off stress and sleep deprivation at this point.

 

“Thanks,” he says, lolling his head to the side to look at Harry. “For helping out so much. It can’t have been easy with your classes and everything.”

 

Harry glances at him before turning his eyes back to the road and shrugging. “Not a big deal. I got all of my work for this week done early so I’d have time.”

 

Louis doesn’t really know what to say to that. He’s not sure how to process the idea that Harry thought that far ahead, thought that much about him that he was willing to schedule his life around what Louis would need. It’s a lot to think about, and Louis doubts he’d be any better prepared if he weren’t halfway into a neurotic coma. But even if he can’t quite get a handle on it, he knows that he likes it.

 

He settles for reaching across the car and setting his hand on Harry’s thigh, squeezing a little. “You’re something else, you know that?” he says quietly. Harry doesn’t answer, just smiles a soft smile and drops his own hand to cover Louis’ briefly before moving it back to the wheel.

 

Back at the flat, Harry starts rattling around pots and pans and making spaghetti. Louis waits, blearily watching this boy make room for him in his home, until the noodles are boiling and the sauce is simmering. Then he crowds into Harry’s space and drops to his knees, going down on him with Harry leaning back against the countertop and cursing a blue streak. Harry comes as the noodles boil over, and they eat slightly overcooked spaghetti from bowls while sitting on the kitchen floor, Louis’ legs thrown over Harry’s lap and one of Harry’s hands loosely circling his ankle. It’s good. The spaghetti, that is, but also—yeah, also the other stuff too.

 

Louis could get used to this. Louis maybe already has. Maybe that’s okay.

 

Harry returns the favor and sucks him off in bed later, leaving Louis a boneless wreck, which thankfully lets him drop off to sleep almost immediately. In the morning, they shower together, Harry using the shampoo to sculpt Louis’ hair into a mohawk and pressing soapy kisses to his mouth. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he murmurs against Louis’ neck, lips slipping against the wet skin, and Louis can almost believe him. Even if everything goes terribly today, he’ll still be able to come back here tonight if he wants to, and that’s a pretty good consolation prize.

 

The whole arrangement for the day is like this: the morning goes by an abbreviated, miniature version of their normal daily schedule, and then halfway through the day everyone files into the theatre for the show. In a lot of ways, the assembly performance is sort of the step between dress rehearsals and the real deal, but he knows it’s more important to his kids, since their classmates are watching.

 

Louis himself has a supply teacher covering his classes while he spends the day in the theatre making sure all the props are in their right places and all the wheels on the moving set pieces are in working order, while Niall and Harry double and triple check the sound and lights. His cast starts trickling in an hour or so before they’re due for mic check, talking and laughing nervously as they filter into dressing rooms and start getting into costumes and makeup. Louis tries not to let his own nerves get the best of him. There’s no time for that.

 

Louis has Harry stationed backstage for this performance because he’s not a hundred percent certain his props manager won’t have a breakdown at some point and he needs a safety net back there for the first show just in case. He can tell Harry would rather be back in the soundbooth with him, by his side the whole time, but he’ll do whatever Louis needs, bless him.

 

After mic check Louis makes one final pass backstage, shouting into the dressing rooms for any stragglers to finish up and slapping Stuart on his leather-clad shoulder as he passes. He checks with his stage manager to make sure her headset’s working properly and then lingers next to some of the side curtains, soaking up the energy around him.

 

“Excuse me, Mr. Director,” says Harry’s voice behind him, and Louis turns around to find Harry standing there grinning at him.

 

Before he knows what’s happening, Harry grabs the curtain next to them in one hand, spins Louis around so that it’s wrapped around both of them, and kisses him full on the lips.

 

“Good luck,” Harry says against his cheek, and then he’s unwrapping them both and sending Louis twirling away. He winks over his shoulder and disappears around the corner, leaving Louis smiling like an idiot after him, still regaining his balance.

 

Five minutes later the curtains go up and Louis is standing in the soundbooth with Niall while one of the other assistant band directors starts up the overture. Niall squeezes Louis’ shoulder. Louis holds his breath.

 

The show goes... really, really well. Obviously there are a few rough patches, like the moment when his Kenickie’s voice cracks in the middle of a high note or the time one of the T-Birds forgets to switch his mic pack on until halfway through a scene and has to dig in the back of his trousers for it, but overall, for a first run it’s great. Louis can breathe again. Once they work out the kinks, opening night could really be amazing. He feels pride swelling in his chest, not just for himself but for his kids who’ve worked so hard for this, who’ve spent so much time and energy on making this great. He loves them, honestly. It’s one of those moments that reminds him why he got into this line of work, why it was so much more than just a backup plan for when he didn’t make it in theatre himself.

 

By the time the curtain is rising for their big opening night show, Louis is giddy and nauseous at the same time, because now that he knows how good the show can be, he’s terrified it won’t happen again. What if the good first run was just luck? What if the other shoe drops and it all goes to hell? There’s no way they can pull it off again.

 

Except they do, they fucking do, and Louis knows it’s just because the audience is full of parents but there’s a standing ovation this time, with multiple whistles when Stuart steps up to take his bow. He was radiant tonight, absolutely nailing every single scene, and Louis doesn’t even feel a tiny flare of jealousy when he admits to himself that Stuart is better than he was at his age. It’s just true, and it makes Louis feel all kinds of warm that he got to witness it and help him along.

 

He doesn’t mind stepping up to take his own round of applause, though. Not one bit. He blinks happily into the stagelights and waves at the crowd, before leading the cast in their final bow and then scampering backstage to find his boys.

 

Harry is easy to find, waiting for him behind the curtain. He throws his arms around Harry’s neck, and Harry picks him up off the floor and spins him around a couple of times before setting him dizzy back on his feet.

 

“It was so good!” Louis shouts.

 

“It was!” Harry agrees, giving Louis one of those big goofy open-mouthed smiles he does.

 

“Yes, it was!” someone says behind him, and Louis spins around to find Zayn standing there grinning back at him. He throws himself at Zayn too, too giddy to hold anything back, and Zayn staggers but returns his hug just as hard. A sudden impact has both of them rocking to one side, and based on the cackles in his ear and the pale arm across his field of vision Louis assumes that it’s Niall who’s just launched himself on top of them.

 

“Get in, Tommo!” he yells, clinging to their shoulders. “Smashed it!” The three of them disentangle giddily, and then Harry is back, pulling all of them into a four-person huddle.

 

“If I had any booze on me,” he drawls, “I’d propose a toast. But as I don’t, let’s just all agree that Louis is brilliant, the show was brilliant, and we’re brilliant for helping.”

 

“Hear, hear!” Zayn says, pressing an affectionate kiss to the side of Louis’ head.

 

“It’s not over yet,” Louis says, still trying to catch his breath. “There’s still tomorrow night. But—but it was good, and I didn’t die, and I suppose you lot had a hand in that. So thanks.” The words aren’t much, but he can feel himself grinning uncontrollably and sees it mirrored back on the others’ faces.

 

Niall whoops a laugh and pulls Louis into what was probably intended to be a noogie but ends up being more like an aggressive cuddle. “First round’s on me!” he crows. “You’ve been an uptight bastard for weeks, and the only way I’m going to forgive you is if you get royally pissed and puke in a toilet tonight.”

 

Louis wouldn’t mind some chemical alteration, to be honest, but tonight isn’t going to be the night for it. “Sorry, Nialler, I’ve gotta help everyone clean up here,” he says, ignoring the boys’ groans. “And then I’ve got an appointment with a bed.” He meets Harry’s eyes and feels some of his exhaustion lift. “Or a mattress, anyway,” he grins, and revels in the way Harry’s expression changes from happiness to anticipation.

 

“All right, you heard the man, get moving, get moving,” Harry says, pushing at Niall with mock urgency. Niall protests, squawking something about the kinds of men who value getting laid over quality time with friends and alcohol, but Zayn leads him away with promises of getting utterly smashed on their own. Louis has the best friends ever.

 

The post-show clean-up happens in a blur, Louis directing his cast and crew with a slightly manic glee and trying not to be constantly, buzzingly aware of Harry always in his field of vision. Louis always feels high after a performance, even if it wasn’t technically him performing, and right now all he wants to do is gush about his kids and then work off some energy on Harry’s body. Normally he doesn’t have that much trouble keeping his hands off him—okay, not a lot of trouble—but right now it’s torture. Harry’s right there, but completely untouchable with a couple dozen amped-up teenagers running around. Louis feels like he can’t stay still, can’t relax with how happy he is, and the only thing he can think of that will calm him down is getting his hands on Harry’s skin.

 

Thankfully, everyone is so antsy and full of energy that clean-up goes relatively quickly. Louis is sure he made some sort of inspirational speech at some point, something thanking everyone for their hard work and pumping them up for the final show on Saturday night, but he can’t for the life of him remember what it was. With Harry dragging him out a side door into the carpark, it doesn’t feel particularly important.

 

There are still parents and students everywhere, so they slide into Harry’s car without a word. Louis is practically vibrating in his seat, and if he doesn’t want to jump Harry in a moving car then he needs to distract himself somehow. He starts talking at top speed about the show, about the performances, about how fucking perfect the costumes looked, and before he knows it they’ve pulled up in front of Harry’s flat.

 

Harry puts the car in park, but neither of them move to get out. This is the first time they’ve really had any privacy since this morning, and the adrenaline still pumping in Louis’ veins wants to do something about that. He unbuckles his seatbelt and reaches over to graze his fingers over Harry’s forearm, teasing a little.

 

“D’you wanna go inside?” Harry says, cheek dimpling on one side like he already knows the answer.

 

“Not quite yet,” Louis says. “I’ve only just gotten you alone, haven’t I then?”

 

“You have,” Harry agrees.

 

“Isn’t this romantic?” Louis says coyly. “You. Me. No students around to tell their parents or report us to the administration.”

 

“God, I love it when you talk dirty,” Harry says, grinning, and then he pulls Louis into his lap and kicks the seat back.

 

They kiss like that for a while, dizzy drags of lips and tongues, riding the high from opening night and all the best parts of the past week. Louis feels like he’ll never get sick of the way Harry wants him anywhere, anytime. The last time he’d gotten felt up in somebody’s car before he met Harry was probably fooling around with the boy down the street back when he was seventeen, but it’s become a normal part of his life lately. There’s something playing on the radio, one of Harry’s bands, and the way the windows start fogging up around them feels familiar and comfortable, a reminder that nothing with Harry has been like anything he’s felt for a long, long time.

 

Finally Louis breaks off and reaches behind himself to pull the keys out of the ignition, smiling against Harry’s lips as the engine goes quiet.

 

“Shall we?”

 

Harry keeps his arms around Louis on the lift, hugging him back into his chest as the gears shudder and creak. They stumble down the hall together, and Louis turns his head to the side and catches Harry’s mouth with his own for a moment before sliding out of his arms so that Harry can get his keys out and let them in.

 

They leave a trail of their clothes on the floor from the door to the shower and get in together, as has become the routine over the past few days. Normally Louis would leave it until morning, but it’s been such a long day and he’s got wood glue in his hair, so he lets Harry wash it out for him while he nips at Harry’s wet collarbones. They get each other off like that, just Louis’ muttered curses bouncing off the tiles and a couple of slippery handjobs, enough that they no longer feel like they need to fuck right away.

 

Once they’ve toweled themselves off, Louis slips into a clean pair of boxers and one of Harry’s t-shirts while Harry pulls on a pair of joggers and gets a box of biscuits down out of the cabinet. Harry sits down on the mattress, and Louis follows after him, pausing for a moment to stand over the boy in front of him, his soggy curls and bare shoulders.

 

Louis tilts his head to one side, considering. “I want to have sex with you,” he says.

 

“Cool,” Harry says through a mouthful of biscuit.

 

Louis kneels down on the mattress and crawls over to Harry, taking the box from his hands and setting it down on the floor next to them before climbing into Harry’s lap.

 

“But,” Louis says, “I’m all excited and happy and I want to talk more about the show first. Can we talk more about the show first?” Louis doesn’t know why he’s asking permission, since he’s never asked permission to talk anybody’s ear off before, but Harry just smiles and nods so he figures it doesn’t matter.

 

And so Louis picks up right where he left off, every cue his kids nailed, every harmony that stayed on pitch, every time the audience laughed or applauded in the right places. He knows he’s probably starting to repeat himself by now, but Harry seems happy to indulge him even though he witnessed the whole thing, and he even chimes in with his own observations and compliments about Louis’ directing that make Louis’ grin so big his face hurts.

 

He interrupts himself periodically to kiss Harry some more or spend a few minutes grinding down on his lap, half to show Harry he hasn’t forgotten his promise and half because he just wants to. When you’ve got permission to touch somebody as unbelievably fit as Harry is, it’s frankly hard not to want to put your mouth on him all the time. It’s nice to talk to him like this, to tell him all the mundane little things filling up his overcrowded head, and then to get to kiss him whenever he feels like it. He likes that a lot.

 

Somewhere past the forty-five minute mark, though, he starts to feel a little less wired. His back is aching, and he’s sure that if he could just lie down for a few minutes, he’ll be fine.

 

“Can we lie down?” Louis says into Harry’s shoulder. “Just for a minute, I promise.”

 

Harry obliges, leaning back onto the mattress and pulling the blanket up over them. Louis settles into his side and carries right on, talking about how fabulous his Rizzo was and how much the crowd loved her.

 

It goes on for another thirty minutes, and then Louis starts to feel his eyes getting heavy, and he promises himself only one more. One more thing, and then sex. Five more minutes.

 

That resolution lasts exactly three minutes, until he starts drifting off mid-sentence.

 

“Okay,” Harry says, kissing Louis gently between the eyes. “Let’s go to sleep.”

 

“Nooo,” Louis says, although the word is muffled by a gigantic yawn, which does nothing to help his case. He reaches down for Harry’s elastic waistband. “I’m a man of my word. C’mon, budge up.”

 

“You’re tired, we’re sleeping,” Harry says, pulling Louis onto his chest and holding him there. Louis huffs, but Harry’s not letting go and he is tired, so he settles for biting Harry half-heartedly on the chest.

 

“Fine,” Louis says. “But tomorrow night, we’re going to go back to my flat where there’s a proper bed, and you are getting the best sex of your life, Styles. I mean it. You’ve been warned.”

 

Louis feels a quiet, fond laugh rumble up through Harry’s body, and Harry leans down to rub his nose against Louis’ damp hair. “I look forward to it.”

 

“Mmm,” Louis says, closing his eyes and nestling his face down into the side of Harry’s neck, “you’d better.”

 

Tomorrow, he decides, in those few unguarded moments between awake and asleep. Tomorrow, after the show, he’ll tell him.

 

✖

 

 

Louis wakes up with his face stuck to Harry’s bare chest by his own drool. So that’s his life these days.

 

Harry’s already awake, thumbing through something on his phone while he strokes Louis’ hair with his other hand. There’s a little crease between his brows like he’s frowning at something, and Louis thinks maybe the screen is a little too bright in the dim light of the flat.

 

“Time is it?” Louis mumbles, stretching his legs out and letting his feet tangle up with Harry’s.

 

“Almost eight,” Harry says. “Sorry if I woke you up, my brain’s still on school schedule.”

 

“‘S’all right,” Louis tells him. “Needed to get up early today anyway. First show’s at one.”

 

“Oh my God,” Harry says with mock alarm, looking up from his phone. “You mean you only have five hours to make it to school? Whatever shall we do?”

 

“Hush,” Louis says, swatting at Harry’s chest ineffectually. “I happen to be very dedicated to my craft.”

 

“I know,” Harry says fondly, giving up the act. “I love that about you.”

 

Louis just barely doesn’t freeze up at those words and how close they come something else, but if Harry notices how much Louis’ heartbeat has picked up, he doesn’t let on. He sets his phone down on top of the blankets and turns his head to kiss Louis good morning, then rolls off of the mattress and gets to his feet.

 

“Oi,” Louis says, distracted as he finds himself staring at Harry’s very naked backside. “Didn’t you have pants on when we went to sleep?”

 

“Yes, well,” Harry says as he sashays into the kitchen like some kind of fucking nymph, “you did kind of wind me up and then fall asleep on me. Sometimes a lad has to take matters into his own hands.”

 

“Harold!” Louis gasps, sitting up and clasping a hand over his heart. “Are you telling me that you got yourself off without me?”

 

“I’ve got needs, babe,” Harry says with a wink. He stretches up to reach the plates in the top shelf of the cabinet, giving Louis a very deliberate view of the long, muscular lines of his body. What a fucking bastard.

 

“I can’t believe you didn’t wake me up,” Louis says. “I’d have liked to at least watch.”

 

“Yeah?” Harry says, pausing on his way over to the refrigerator. “You’d like that?”

 

“Fuck off, you know I like that,” Louis says. “Don’t play coy with me, Styles.”

 

He knows Harry remembers just as well as Louis does all the times they’ve watched each other touch themselves, in the middle of getting fucked or when the other is busy doing something else or that one time Harry made Louis watch him for half an hour before he even got to touch him. Just the thought of Harry pumping into his own fist under the sheets next to him has Louis all hot around the ears, and Harry must know that.

 

“I wasn’t exactly being quiet about it,” Harry says. He pulls out the eggs and grabs the skillet out of the sink as he crosses back to the stove and gets to work. “You were dead to the world, though. I couldn’t have woken you up if I tried.”

 

Louis hauls himself out of bed and sidles into the kitchen, right up behind Harry at the stove. Maybe it’s a bit too early for this, but Harry is cooking breakfast naked and Louis is wearing his t-shirt and standing under his stupid adorable Christmas lights, so he figures they’re way past rules at this point. Besides, he’s always going to be a competitive prick, and Harry’s given him a clear challenge. He presses himself flush against Harry’s back and wraps his arms around him, covering up one of Harry’s hands on his stomach with his own, and then tilts his chin up to murmur into Harry’s ear.

 

“Couldn’t keep yourself quiet, then?” he says. “Too hot for me?”

 

“Yeah,” Harry says, voice so low that Louis feels it way down in the bottom of his ribs.

 

“Were you thinking about me?” Louis says, letting one of his hands slide down to the place where Harry’s hip meets his thigh. “Thinking about what I’m gonna do to you tonight when I finally get you alone?” He cranes his neck up, punctuating every word with his mouth on Harry’s ear. “For as long... as... I... want?”

 

“Y-yeah,” Harry says. His free hand is gripping the countertop for dear life.

 

Louis drops a line of kisses down the back of Harry’s neck, starting at the place where his hair curls up against the nape and making Harry shiver as his lips count each vertebra. When he gets to Harry’s shoulders, he kisses each one right on the top where he can feel the bones and muscle move, and then bows his head to plant one last kiss between Harry’s shoulder blades.

 

He’s a fucking tease, and he knows it, and Harry should hate him for it, but he just hums with warmth at Louis’ touch, letting it soak into his skin. Louis thinks about staying here forever, memorizing the freckles on Harry’s back, leaving his name there. He looks at the space between Harry’s shoulders and he realises that he wants it to be his, and he can’t quite work out how that makes him feel. It’s good, though. It feels good.

 

“Turn around,” Louis says.

 

Harry obeys, turning to face Louis, and God, Louis forgets sometimes how beautiful Harry is. He takes it for granted, he guesses, because he sees Harry so much, but right up close it’s unbelievable. His eyes are wide and today they’re the palest green and it almost makes Louis lightheaded when he looks at them, not just because they’re gorgeous but because they’re looking at him like that, the way that Harry looks at him so often that he hasn’t put a name on yet. But it’s his, Louis thinks. He’s the only one Harry looks at that way, and even if he can’t leave his name on Harry’s skin, he has that. And he can do this.

 

He taps twice on Harry’s left arm, and they’ve done this so many times that Harry doesn’t need any further instruction to know what Louis wants. He leans back against the counter next to them and raises his arms above his head, holding onto the handles on the cabinet doors to keep them there. Louis kisses him on the lips once, twice, then stands up on the tips of his toes to put his mouth on the spot on the inside of Harry’s bicep that’s come to be his.

 

“That’s a promise,” Louis says when he finally pulls back, satisfied that he’s left a mark there that will last at least until that night. Harry drops his arms down to circle around Louis’ waist, and Louis lets himself be pulled into another kiss, feeling Harry’s smile against his lips.

 

They have to break off before long, because Louis’ got a big day ahead of him and they don’t have time to finish anything so they’d might as well not start it. He puts the kettle on and Harry at least has the sense to put an apron on over his naked body, which looks absolutely ridiculous but will at least protect his bits from any rogue splashes of grease. Louis’ grown quite fond of those bits, and he’d hate to see them disfigured in a freak breakfast accident.

 

They sit down at the table with plates of fried eggs and toast and a pot of tea and just talk for a bit, enjoying each others’ company as well as a few moments of peace before the madness of the oncoming day. The matinee performance shouldn’t be too bad since they’ve worked out all the rough parts and the only people who actually show up to a Saturday matinee are the actors’ families, which guarantees a good response from the audience, and closing night is always the best performance. It’s just a matter of making sure everything runs smoothly and being there to catch anything before it goes wrong, which he can handle.

 

Underneath the nerves for the last two performances, there’s something else anxious and excited buzzing. It’s quiet, but it gets louder every time he looks at Harry, gonna tell him gonna tell him gonna tell him. Tonight’s the night. Oh God.

 

Thankfully he doesn’t have much time to think about that, because as soon as they’re done with breakfast they’ve got to get out the door. Louis pulls on some proper clothes and Harry throws on a pair of jeans and the shirt that Louis discards, looking pleased when he sniffs the collar. Louis wonders if it smells like him, although he can’t imagine why Harry would be pleased about that, since he reckons he probably smells like cat dander and laundry all the time.

 

After a quick stop by Louis’ flat, they make it to the school a couple of hours ahead of the performance with plenty of time to make sure Louis is there when the first kids start to arrive. Everyone checks in with him on their way in, and Louis can breathe a little more easily once the last person is accounted for and everybody’s where they should be.

 

The matinee performance goes off without a hitch, just as he expected it would, and they’ve got a good three hours before the curtain goes up for the final show. The cast and crew are to hang about until then since it’d make no sense to turn them loose, so Louis is ready to settle in for a nice bit of quiet. Maybe he’ll even find Harry, who had decided to watch the show from the audience this time around, or round up Zayn and Niall for a bit of company. It’s hard to believe that, after everything, it’s almost over and he’s made it this far without any major catastrophes.

 

Naturally, that’s when one of the crew comes sprinting out from backstage in a panic.

 

“Mr. Tomlinson!” she says, screeching to a halt in front of him. “Hi, um, I don’t mean to alarm you but, um, Ellie is... Ellie is really, really ill.”

 

“What?” Louis says, feeling his blood pressure rise already. “What d’you mean ill? Where is she?”

 

“This way, sir,” the girl says, gesturing toward the left wing of backstage. Louis follows her quickly up the steps. “She says she thinks she ate some funny chicken for lunch and now she’s, um, well, she’s kind of violently ill.”

 

They round the corner, and sure enough, there sits Louis’ stage manager in a cold sweat with an a bucket balanced in her lap. Shit. Fucking shitting no, this is bad.

 

“No, no, I told you not to tell him!” Ellie says, looking very faint and very green. “I’m fine, Mr. Tomlinson, I promise. I can do the last show. It’s fine. I feel better now that I’ve thrown up, I sw—”

 

Ellie’s argument is interrupted by another wave of sick as she heaves into the bucket, and somewhere nearby a chorus member gags and runs off in the direction of the nearest dressing room.

 

“Oh God,” Louis says, kneeling down to feel Ellie’s clammy forehead. She wipes her mouth on her sleeve, looking utterly miserable, and Louis can’t find it in himself to be cross at all. “No, love, I think you’ve got food poisoning. You need to call your mum and get yourself taken care of.” Before you start a cast-wide vomit chain reaction, he doesn’t add.

 

“No, I have to do it,” Ellie insists. “There’s nobody else to fill in, we’re already spread too thin with the crew. Somebody’s got to make sure everybody gets their cues.”

 

“We’ll figure something out,” Louis tells her. “Do you have your copy of the script with all your notes in it?”

 

Ellie nods, eyes full of tears, and Louis would hug her if he weren’t afraid she might be sick all over him. “It’s over there on the prop table.”

 

“All right,” Louis tells her. “Then we’ll be okay. You just worry about getting better, all right?” He turns to the girl from the crew. “Take her somewhere else and call her mum, will you? And, erm, see that somebody does something about that bucket.”

 

The girl nods, and Louis gives Ellie a consolatory pat on the shoulder, and then she starts throwing up again and he snatches the binder up off the prop table and beats a hasty retreat.

 

“Fuck,” he says as soon as he’s out of the auditorium and out of earshot of any of the kids. “Fucking hell.”

 

“What’s wrong?” Harry’s voice comes from behind him, because he apparently has spidey senses when it comes to Louis freaking the fuck out. He feels Harry’s hand on his hip and focuses in on it, trying to ground himself.

 

“Ellie, the stage manager,” he says, turning around and dropping his head onto Harry’s shoulder. “She’s vomiting like she’s in the fucking Exorcist and she can’t do the evening show and she’s literally what keeps everything from falling apart backstage.” He slaps the binder against Harry’s chest. “She’s the only one who knows all this stuff besides me, and I can’t do it because I need to be in the sound booth. So we’re fucked. Fucked by fucking dodgy chicken.”

 

“I could do it,” Harry says simply.

 

Louis processes that for a second to make sure he didn’t mishear, lifts up his head, and blinks at him. “What?”

 

“I could do it,” Harry repeats, shrugging. “I’ve been backstage working on the set for so many run-throughs that I’m pretty sure I have all the cues memorized myself by now. And if you have her script, I can just read her notes.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, absolutely,” Harry says. “I’ll do it.”

 

Louis stares at him for a moment like he’s just fallen directly from heaven and into his theatre, and maybe he has, but Louis can’t let him do even more than he’s already done. “No, Haz, this is too much,” Louis says. “I can’t ask you to do this. I’ve already made you do way too much.”

 

“All right, hold on,” Harry says, folding his arms over his chest. “You haven’t made me do anything, and you didn’t even ask me to do most of it, either. I’m not doing any of this because I feel obligated, or because I’m expecting anything from you, or because I want you to feel like you owe me, or anything like that.” He uncrosses his arms and grips Louis by the shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. “Everything I’ve done—everything we’ve all done—is because you’re important to us and we want to help you, all right? So let me help you with this. Please.”

 

Louis stares some more, speechless, before he finally relents, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Ugh, I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

 

“Terrible things, probably. Now let’s see that script.” Harry pulls the binder out of Louis’ hands.

 

Louis lets go, but slightly unwillingly. There’s no way this will work. The universe is not that kind. “I’m going to have to explain a lot of it to you. I’ve seen her notes, they don’t make much sense unless you know what she’s talking about.”

 

“Okay, then. Crash course. Teach me, Mr. Tomlinson,” Harry grins.

 

Shuddering, Louis smacks him upside the head. “Ew, don’t, that’s weird. Come on, freak.”

 

They sit outside on a bench, and Louis runs him through everything, start to finish. He’s right, Ellie’s notes are cramped and half in shorthand, but Harry is right, too. He knows the show almost as well as Louis does by now, and he picks almost everything up right away. He’s checking his phone an awful lot, which annoys Louis a little, but he’s still focused on Louis’ explanations. They spend an hour like that, Louis eventually taking the binder away and quizzing Harry on the different cues. He’s not perfect, but he’s better than anyone else Louis is going to find on short notice.

 

Finally, Harry takes the binder back, and shoos Louis back into the building. “I’ll stay here and study more,” he says, “You go do what you need to do. Don’t worry about me.”

 

Louis doesn’t believe in a higher power, but as he walks back through the double doors he can’t help but send out a dizzy thank you thank you thank you to whoever might be listening in on his thoughts.

 

A whirlwind two hours later and the audience is filtering in, including Liam, who’s sitting up front with Zayn. Louis does his final check on everything backstage, giving every cast and crew member within arm’s reach a hug and yelling out “Break a leg!” willy-nilly. When he’s finished giving a final pep talk to his glorious, beautiful Sandy, he turns to go find Harry. Literally, he turns, because Harry is right behind him, and Louis kind of wants to cry.

 

“Everything’s going to—” Harry starts, but Louis cuts him off.

 

“It’s going to be fine,” he says, smiling a little at the way Harry’s eyes widen. “The kids are gonna do great. You’re going to do great. You’ve got this.” He pauses a moment, but fuck it. “I trust you.”

 

Harry has a look of wonder on his face, and a little bit of terror, Louis thinks, but who cares? Considering what he’s going to tell him tonight, this is barely scary at all. How liberating. He flashes Harry a grin and then beats a retreat to the sound booth. Niall gives him a double thumbs-up, the lights go down, and the curtain goes up. Showtime.

 

It’s perfect.

 

The songs are perfect, the acting is perfect, the show is fucking perfect. Louis can see the joy on his cast’s faces during “We Go Together,” and he doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing. He’s whooping and whistling along with the parents when the curtain finally falls, hugging Niall fiercely and practically running down the aisle to join his kids onstage. He sees Liam and Zayn applauding in the audience, sees Zayn toss a rose onstage with a goofy grin before everyone runs back behind the curtain.

 

Everything is a rush of lights and smiles and tears backstage, people embracing and crying and smearing makeup everywhere in their happiness. It’s a mess and he loves it. This is why he does this. God, he would go through a month of tech weeks for this moment. A year.

 

Suddenly Harry breaks through the chaos, waving and laughing and Harry, and it’s all Louis can do not to grab him right there and snog the living daylights out of him in front of God and everybody. They’re just smiling at each other in the middle of the crowd like a couple of idiots, and then Harry opens his mouth and Louis is expecting him to shout some kind of congratulations over the din or—

 

“I got an internship!”

 

Louis stares at him, smile frozen on his face. “What?”

 

“Remember that internship I told you about? The one in London?” Harry yells back. “I applied for it and they emailed me during the show and I checked my phone after the curtain call and I got it!”

 

For a moment, in the middle of all the noise and the crowd, everything just. Stops.

 

“That’s amazing,” Louis hears himself say, numbly accepting Harry’s hug. “That’s so amazing.”

 

“I’ve got to go phone mum,” Harry says when he pulls back. He looks like his smile is going to split his face in half. “I’ll meet you at the party, okay? Lots to celebrate.”

 

He plants a rough kiss on the top of Louis’ head, and then he’s gone.

 

Louis stands there. The world keeps moving.

 

An internship. Harry got an internship.

 

He can remember it now, that first week in September, Harry perched on the edge of a desk and talking about some internship in London that starts in July. He never put too fine a point on it, and Louis just left that detail where it fell, excluding it from his personal canon of their relationship. Their relationship. He feels ill.

 

And, well. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the end to their story written, then. He knew this would happen. He knew all along that Harry was young, that he was still at that point in his life where everything is in flux. It was always right there, right in Harry’s mattress on the floor and his blind fucking idealism. Louis knew this. He knew this and he let himself forget it.

 

He feels himself moving through the crowd now, feels people slapping him on the back and squeezing his shoulders, can hear people shouting and laughing and congratulating each other, but it’s all muffled and far away. Everything feels so far separated from the ringing in his ears and the dizzy nausea in his stomach, and all he keeps thinking is that he was going to tell him.

 

He was going to tell Harry—God knows what, it hardly matters now—and, Jesus, how did he ever let things get that bad? What the fuck happened to him? How did he ever let his guard down that far, that he almost did something so stupid and irreversible and utterly fucking pointless, while Harry sent off applications he didn’t seem to think Louis had any need to know about for jobs halfway across the country?

 

The image jumps uninvited in front of his eyes, Harry filling out paperwork and mailing it off, dreaming of making it big somewhere bright and exciting, making copies of his portfolio that Louis could never appreciate because he was just a fucking washed-up drama teacher, a thousand younger, more beautiful faces of a thousand younger, more interesting people that Louis could never compete with, all of them waiting for Harry. He remembers, suddenly, a snippet of the phone conversation from the other night, fingers crossed, yeah?, and Harry frowning at his phone this morning and again this afternoon, silently checking on plans Louis wasn’t privy to, and fuck, that realization stings. Harry never even told him he was applying.

 

And why would he? What relevance could Louis possibly have to that life?

 

Louis makes it through the rest of post-show pandemonium in a haze. He’s lucky he’s done this so many times that he doesn’t really have to focus to get all the costumes returned and packed up to ship back to the rental company. He’ll strike the set later. It can wait.

 

The kids are throwing a cast party in the orchestra room, and he knows he should go. He knows Harry will be there waiting for him, flushed with adrenaline and victory, pulling everyone into his orbit. And Louis can’t do it. He can’t face it. He can’t walk in there and see Harry ecstatic and gorgeous in a shirt that Louis slept in last night and deal with the fact that he’s only temporary. He can’t look him in the face and pretend that he’s happy for him. And, God, he hates himself.

 

He gets in his car instead. He sneaks out the back way and crosses the car park alone for the first time in a week, and he gets in his car, because that’s all he knows how to do. He gets in his car and he drives home with the radio off and he doesn’t look at the place where Harry’s fingerprints are still on the window.

 

There’s a bouquet of flowers waiting for him on his kitchen table when he comes through the door and he doesn’t even look at the card, just dumps them straight in the bin and hates himself, hates himself for feeling like this, hates himself for letting things get so far out of hand, hates himself because he knows he’s not enough reason for Harry to stay.

 

He texts Harry, sry i think i’ve got whatever ellie does, ill, don’t come over, and then he turns off his phone and climbs into bed and doesn’t, doesn’t, does not fucking cry.

 

**Chapter 14.**

Louis wakes up at one o’clock in the afternoon the next day with an empty bed, seven missed calls, and eleven text messages. He switches his phone back off and takes a shower and tries not to notice how much everything in his entire bloody flat smells like Harry fucking Styles.

 

As soon as he’s dressed, he takes the spare key out from under the mat and shoves it back in the kitchen drawer.

 

It’s Sunday, the first day of Easter hols, and all Louis can think is that he’s got two weeks ahead of him with nothing to do and nowhere to hide until third term starts.

 

He thinks back to last night, around the big Harry-shaped part of it to everything else. He remembers Zayn and Liam in the front row of the audience, Liam beaming at the show and Zayn beaming at Liam, and he imagines that at least half of his texts are from Zayn going on and on about how he can tell that things with Liam are almost there, and Louis can’t handle that today. He remembers Niall catching his eye somewhere in the middle of costume roundup and he remembers the look on his face, careful and sympathetic and uncertain, and he knows Niall must know about the internship and so Zayn probably knows too and they’re probably both worrying about him on top of everything else, and he really can’t handle that.

 

It’s simple, then. He’s got to get hell out of Manchester.

 

He stuffs a bag with clothes from the back of his closet and the bottom of his wardrobe, whichever ones Harry hasn’t touched, and his toothbrush and an extra pair of shoes and calls his mum from the car, Duchess dozing in her basket in the backseat.

 

“Surprise!” he says down the line, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as manic as it feels. “I’m coming home for the hols!”

 

“What’s happened, love?” his mum says immediately. Goddamn mother’s intuition. It’s downright terrifying. “Are you all right?”

 

“I’m fine, mum,” he lies. “Just missing you and the girls, that’s all. I’m already on my way, should be there in an hour.”

 

“All right,” she says, clearly unconvinced. “We’ll talk when you get home, boo.”

 

Louis doesn’t bother trying to tell her there’s nothing to talk about. He knows it’s useless.

 

The drive to Doncaster is miserable and endless that day, even though he’s made it hundreds of times. He can’t bear to listen to the radio because if he hears a single love song he might drive into a tree, and he can’t bear to sit in silence because then he’s just alone with his thoughts, which is even worse. In the end he puts on some meaningless radio show hosted by some meaningless bloke with a boring voice and lets it lull his brain into static.

 

His mum must have told the girls he was coming, because the instant he pulls up to the house, the front door flies open and the twins are yanking him out of the car and down into the grass with them like they've always done since they were little, laughing and screaming and tripping him when he tries to get back up. He wrestles them off, careful not to let either of them get a good look at his eyes.

 

“You two almost the same size as me, I really don't think this is a fair fight anymore,” Louis says as they giggle behind him. He goes back to the car for his bag and lets Daisy carry Duchess in before following them up the garden path.

 

Phoebe leaves the door wide open behind her, and Louis can hear the girls bustling about inside the house, shouting from room to room.

 

“Lottie, come down and say hello to your brother!” his mum yells from somewhere inside.

 

Louis stands at the threshold of the house for a moment, feeling the old familiar floor sturdy under his feet. He’s always been good at holding onto hurt. He’s always had a gift for packing it up tightly and hiding it away behind jokes and a pretense that he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s a skill that’s always been a necessary part of his life, and this house knows it. It suits that he’s back here now. One more thing to tuck beneath the floorboards.

 

“There’s my boy,” his mother says as she rounds the corner. She pulls him into a crushing hug, and Louis feels his body melt into it without his permission. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”

 

“Missed you too, mum,” Louis croaks. Shit, shit, he can feel his eyes burning. He’s always fine, always fine, until his mum hugs him.

 

“Uh-oh,” she says. She steps back, gripping him by the shoulders, and peers intently into his face. “I knew it. What happened?”

 

“Nothing,” Louis says, hating his voice for breaking in the middle of the word.

 

She blinks at him, a frown creasing her brow, and Louis chews on the inside of his cheek and tries to reel himself back in. “Did you lose your job?” she asks.

 

“No, mum, I didn’t lose my job,” Louis tells her.

 

“Did your father call?”

 

Louis almost laughs at that one, because he hasn’t spoken to his dad in a year. “No, he hasn’t—”

 

“Is it a boy?”

 

“No, mum,” Louis says, stepping out of her grasp. “I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong. I just missed you, that’s all.”

 

His mum doesn’t look like she believes him for a second, but before she has a chance to call him on it, Lottie comes jogging down the stairs.

 

“Did you miss me too, then?” Lottie says.

 

“Never,” Louis tells her. “Can hardly stand the sight of you now.”

 

“Mutual,” Lottie says, and then she smiles and yanks him into a hug of her own. He catches his mum’s eye over Lottie’s shoulder, sees the concern there, but then he’s surrounded by the chatter of his girls and has more than enough distraction.

 

It’s so easy to slide right back into life here, to pick up exactly where he left off. Despite years of living on his own, he still can’t cook for shit, but he can stand in the kitchen and clean up clutter while his mother does, and he can mediate—or provoke—dinner table bickering, and he can prod his sisters into doing their fair share of the washing up. He can’t pretend that some things haven’t changed, though, that the twins don’t have to be reminded to set a place for him at the table. That’s all right, though. He’s the one who decided to leave. He’d be the last one to ask people he loves to save space in their life for a ghost.

 

One by one—or two, in the case of the twins—his sisters go to bed, with admonishments from their mum about brushing teeth and washing faces. It’s routine, and boring, and home, and Louis wishes there were still a blue toothbrush waiting for him upstairs, that he was still worried about dental appointments and lying about flossing.

 

The sad thing is that he is, though, when he thinks about it. He’s worried about the dentist, and he’s worried about heartache, and he’s worried about his rent, and no one ever told him that the worries of childhood wouldn’t get replaced by the worries of adolescence and adulthood. They just accumulated, and sometimes the weight of being every version of himself at once is too much.

 

So that’s how he ends up in his mum’s bedroom, lying with her in bed and watching crap television, as is the Tomlinson way. He can’t count how many times they’ve have ended up here, when one or both of them needed space to fall apart but couldn’t afford to do it properly. They’re curled up under the blankets, warm and insular, and Louis hasn’t been listening to whatever’s on telly for the past fifteen minutes but he’s glad of the noise. It makes him feel safe, here in this room whose decor hasn’t changed since he was ten, safe enough to open his mouth without knowing what’s going to come out.

 

“Mum,” Louis says. “I’m gonna ask you something, and I don’t want you to think it’s a, a cry for help for something. I just really want to know. So be honest.”

 

“Oh Lord,” his mum says. She digs the remote control out of the blankets and mutes the television. “All right.”

 

He takes a breath, picking at the fringe of the bedspread and feeling incredibly stupid and small even though it’s his mum, the one place in the world where it ever feels safe to let his guard down.

 

“Are you proud of me?”

 

She turns to fix him with a look. “Baby,” she says, reaching down to still his hands. “Why would you even ask that?”

 

“I don’t know, Mum,” Louis says. He pulls his hands away and draws his knees up to his chest. “Maybe because I never did anything I set out to do, or because I’m so emotionally fucked, or because I couldn’t stick around here to help with the girls, or because of the whole thing with Dad, or because I’m probably never going to—”

 

“Louis,” she interrupts, and Louis falls silent. She scoots back on the bed so that she’s sitting with her back against the headboard next to him and tilts his chin up with one hand, making him look her in the eye. “You are my boy. You are the only son I could ever want to have. There has never been a moment of your life that I wasn’t proud of you. Okay?”

 

Louis nods a little, and his mother’s face goes soft and she pulls him into her side so that his head is resting against her shoulder. He closes his eyes, feeling her hair brushing against his face and breathing in the smell of the detergent she’s been using every day since he was a kid, and he swallows around the tightness in his throat.

 

“You’re my boy,” she says again. “And I know you better than anybody in this world. Maybe I don’t know what you’re going through right now, maybe you don’t want to tell me what it is yet, but I know you. And I know your heart, and I know you’ll be okay. You’re always okay.”

 

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Louis tells her. “It feels like I’m never okay.”

 

“I know, baby,” she says, squeezing his shoulder. “I don’t think you know how strong you are.”

 

“Maybe,” Louis says. He wants so badly to believe her, but he just doesn’t think he can.

 

He remembers when he was younger, when it was so much easier to believe those things his mum said, back before he’d watched a marriage implode and gotten left by two fathers and had his own heart ripped up and turned inside out. He remembers how she used to tell him that things work out for the best and he believed her, and that made things okay back then.

 

He lets her stroke his hair in silence for a minute, and then he asks her, in a small voice, “Do you still believe in love?”

 

She laughs a little, taken by surprise, and says, “Do you still want me to be honest?”

 

Louis hesitates for only a moment. “Yeah.”

 

She takes a long moment to consider, pursing her lips in thought. “I do believe in love,” she says finally. “But I don’t know anymore if I believe that we’re all meant to find it, or keep it forever. It’s complicated.”

 

“Yeah.” There doesn’t seem to be much else to say. After a moment, his mum unmutes the television and they settle back into silence. Louis falls asleep like that, lulled by canned laughter and the thought that even if most things fade, this will probably last forever.

 

His old room was repurposed into Fizzy’s room ages ago, but there’s a TV-room upstairs with a sofa in it that he usually sleeps on when he comes home to visit. He spends his second night in Doncaster there, tossing and turning even though he still feels heavy and exhausted. He can’t stop thinking about the phone he hasn’t checked, about what Harry might be doing, about how stupid he is for caring what Harry might be doing, about how lonely he feels curled up on the sofa by himself.

 

He finally does manage a few hours of restless sleep, but that too is ruined—not by his own mess of a brain, but by something heavy dropping on top of him and startling him awake.

 

“Morning, gorgeous,” says a familiar voice right up against his ear, and Louis’ eyes fly open to find Stan leering at him from atop his ribcage.

 

“Jesus fuck,” Louis hisses.

 

“There he is!” Stan coos, pinching Louis’ cheeks. “Oh, look at that grumpy little face!”

 

Louis slaps Stan’s hands away, scrunching his face up even more in annoyance. “The fuck is wrong with you, I was trying to sleep.”

 

“D’you honestly think,” Stan says, so close to Louis’ face that Louis goes cross-eyed trying to look at him, “that you’re allowed to come back to Doncaster without telling me first, Tommo?”

 

“Get off,” Louis grumbles, trying to push Stan off and finding no success. “You’re a nuisance. You should be sterilized.”

 

“I missed you too,” Stan says.

 

“How did you even know I was here?” Louis says, even though he reckons he already knows the answer to that.

 

“Your mum called me,” Stan tells him. “I’ve got to hear about things from your mother, mate, that’s just not on.”

 

Louis groans, trying to pull the blanket up over his head but finding it pinned down by Stan’s body. “And what else did she tell you?”

 

“That you came home out of the clear blue sky and you’ve been a great sorry mess ever since,” Stan says. “Which I, being your best friend, immediately knew to mean that things with a certain curly-haired ponce had gone sour.”

 

“He’s not a ponce,” Louis says automatically.

 

“Ah, so you’re saying I’m right,” Stan says.

 

God, how does he always fall for that one? Louis screws his eyes shut, desperate not to talk about this. “Fuck off.”

 

“Hey,” Stan says, reaching up to ruffle Louis’ hair. “Hey, I’m not here to take the piss.” Louis doesn’t say anything, and Stan nudges Louis’ chin with his fingers. “Hey, Lou, look at me.”

 

When Louis does open his eyes, Stan’s expression has changed from deliberate obnoxiousness to gentle concern, and Louis thinks that kind of mood switch is something that only really happens between people who know each other soul-deep like he and Stan do.

 

 

“I’m being serious now,” Stan says. “Tell me what happened. Or don’t, if you don’t want to, only I know you do, because I’m the only one you always tell.”

 

Louis sighs. Stan is, as always, right. “Only if you get off of me,” he says.

 

“Fair enough,” Stan says, scooting backwards on the sofa. Louis pulls his legs in and curls them up underneath him, tugging the blanket around his shoulders as he sits up.

 

He’s never really talked about his whole thing with Harry. He’s told Zayn and Niall some of the better stories about ridiculous places they’ve fucked and mentioned the times they spend together just hanging out by way of recounting some joke Harry had made the night before, but he’s never actually put the last few months into words. He’s not even sure where to start, if it goes all the way back to that day in his classroom with the box of cables or the first time they kissed or somewhere in between. He tells Stan the abridged version, the highlights, all the parts that are easier to talk about. None of it is really easy to talk about, not now, but maybe it’ll be good for him to get it all out. Maybe if he can condense it all into a story for Stan it will start feeling more like a few ridiculous months and less like a giant fucking weight on his chest.

 

So he explains it all, right up to closing night and how happy Harry had looked when he told him about the internship, like he’d expected Louis to be happy for him too, like he couldn’t think of a reason why he wouldn’t be. Stan listens quietly, which is a miracle because typically a story involving this much sex would be getting a much more animated response from Stan, but he seems to understand that Louis isn’t in the mood. Eventually Louis just trails off, staring at his toes and hating the word “internship” and the way it tastes in his mouth. Stan waits for him to say anything else, but he doesn’t. There’s nothing else to say.

 

“Have you considered the possibility that he might not take it?” Stan says carefully. “Or that he might want you to go with him?”

 

Louis sighs and pulls a pillow halfway over his head. The thing is, he has considered that. He knows that Harry cares about him. They don’t talk about feelings, and Louis has never—at least not until recently—liked to think about it much, but he’d have to be completely blind or very stupid to think that Harry didn’t care about him. But Harry cares about a lot of things, and he cares about him the same way he cares about everything else: intensely, and not always for a long time.

 

So, yeah, Harry cares about him, but in a way that comes easily to him. Harry cares about him in the way that somebody cares when they don’t really know yet how the hard and dirty parts of life work, and Louis doesn’t believe Harry knows what it means to be invested in him long-term. As long as he and Harry are in the same place, Harry is going to give this—whatever it is—all he’s got, but things change and Harry isn’t tied down to anything.

 

A lot of Harry’s life is about experiences and sentiment and memories, about holding onto moments while he keeps moving, and Louis knows, really, that he’s just another stray that Harry’s picked up. He’s another bit of color on Harry’s wall to remember, oh, Manchester, wasn’t that fun, I was with Louis then. And Harry might think that he cares about Louis differently now, but that’ll change too. Louis doesn’t have any illusions about himself, he knows he’s bitter and unlovable and not the kind of person you build a life around. All he is to Harry is this moment in time, and all he’s going to be in the future is a story.

 

“He’ll take the internship,” he tells Stan, half-muffled by the pillow. “I know Harry, and he never met a risk he didn’t like. And he never even told me he was applying, so I doubt he ever had any plans of taking me with him, so if he does ask, it’ll just be an impulsive thing, and I know he won’t really want me to go. Even if he thinks he does. He won’t have thought it through, and then if I went he’d just realise he’d made a mistake and get sick of me and it’d be even worse. There’s no happy fucking ending. He’s leaving and I’m staying and there’s no reason it should be any different.”

 

“I can think of one,” Stan says.

 

“Well, I can’t,” Louis says. “And I’d be an idiot to think otherwise. An idiot who never learned a damn thing the first hundred times around.”

 

“Lou,” Stan says, “I mean, I know you’ve got every right to doubt, but it doesn’t always have to be that way.”

 

Louis huffs out a humorless laugh and turns sideways, burrowing down into the armrest with the pillow still over his head. “It already is that way.”

 

“Christ,” Stan says. “You’re proper miserable, aren’t you?”

 

Louis doesn’t answer, just grits his teeth against the feeling in his stomach, and after a moment he feels Stan’s hand on his knee as he pushes himself to his feet.

 

“All right,” Stan says, pacing in front of the sofa. “We can talk about it later. Right now what we need is, number one, pizza—” he’s got his phone out, already pulling up a number in his contacts “—and number two, all day FIFA tournament. You think you can handle that?”

 

Louis groans, but yeah, he can handle that.

 

Thankfully Stan lets the subject drop for the rest of the day, and when he leaves, Louis decides that’s it. That’s the last time he talks about things with Harry. It’s the last time he lets himself access those feelings. And this, right now, back in Doncaster—this is the last time he lets himself care. As soon as he gets in his car and points it toward Manchester, the armor goes back on.

 

It should be easy, because Louis’ done this before. Louis spent years behind walls, and he knows how to build them. He can’t have gotten that far from where he was when he met Harry, settled into his lonely life. It should be easy to shut all of this off.

 

 

It should be easy.

 

Harry keeps texting him, and Louis just replies that he’s sick and he’s staying with his mum until he’s better and he can’t talk on the phone, and he ignores the sad emoticons and promises to make him feel better because he cannot fucking deal with that right now. Instead he stays busy so that he doesn’t have time to think about anything, because if he doesn’t think about going back to Manchester and facing reality and having to do any of this then it’s not real and it won’t happen and he can just keep avoiding it.

 

At least the girls are having a good time, because his fear of sitting still for too long means he’s constantly offering to drive them around and take them shopping and braid their hair and play with them out in the garden. His mum can tell, though, he knows by the way she keeps looking at him, the way she purses her lips when she stands in the doorway of the kitchen and watches him dyeing Easter eggs with Phoebe and Daisy, his fingers stained bright green.

 

“I’m fine,” he tells her when the girls have gone. “I’m fine.”

 

“I didn’t ask,” she says.

 

The days drag by, and between all the texts he’s been dodging from Zayn and Niall, it’s hard to forget about everything, but Louis decides it doesn’t matter. Eventually those texts start to fade away anyway, and Louis gets a sick stab of pleasure that they’ve given up. Good. Fewer conversations he’ll have to grit his teeth through.

 

The faster everyone lets go of this, the better.

 

Z

 

 

Zayn can’t write.

 

He’s been trying. He’s sat down and tried to make some headway more times than he can count over break. His editor is breathing down his neck and he has a draft deadline coming up, and he’d been counting on these days off to be a chance for him to catch up, and now he can’t write.

 

He’s tried everything. He stared at a blank Word document for a few hours, took a Moleskine to every coffee shop in town, and even hauled out the typewriter he impulse-bought as a university student with little spare money and less sense. The cursor just blinked at him accusingly, the sugary-sweet coffee set his brain on edge, and it turned out the ink ribbons in the typewriter are all tangled anyway. He got high in front of a notebook and just ended up doodling ten pages of dragons. He hasn’t written a usable word in weeks. He’s considering switching to parchment and quill pen if this keeps up.

 

Part of it is distraction. Louis has been evasive all break, and even if Zayn hadn’t known him for years, the way he vanished after curtain call at Grease still would have raised more than a few red flags. It hadn’t been until Louis had dodged his calls for a few days that Zayn had remembered the good news Harry had gotten that night and put two and two together.

 

His best friend has a broken heart and refuses to talk about it, and for all Zayn knows he’s on some destructive bender that Zayn’s going to have to clean up. Admittedly, that’d probably be pretty difficult to pull off at his mum’s house, but Louis Tomlinson is nothing if not inventive. Give him access to a chemist’s and enough motivation and he could be cooking meth in his mum’s bath inside a week just for the hell of it.

 

So yeah, Zayn’s worried about his friend, and that’s part of his block. It’s not all of it, though. There’s also—as there always is—Liam.

 

Liam had come with him to see the final show on Saturday, and Zayn had really, truly, honest-to-God thought that they were getting somewhere. Like, okay, sure, Liam probably had as much stake in the show as Zayn by that point, so maybe it’s not that surprising that he’d want to go, but Zayn had asked him specifically to go with him, and he’d said yes. Well, all right, Zayn had found out that Liam was planning to go on Saturday and had asked if he wanted to sit with him, but still. There had been a plan. Just the two of them. That foretold only good things, surely, but—well.

 

It’s not like anything had gone wrong, exactly. It was very fun and Liam was lovely and was adorably enthralled by the entire thing, but that was it. He hadn’t wanted to come to the cast party, saying he had work in the morning and begging off, and had sort of awkwardly wobbled around before offering Zayn a fist bump as way of saying goodbye. A fist bump. That’s how much work there is left for Zayn to do, apparently. Months of effort have only graduated him to a fist bump level of intimacy.

 

Normally, feeling down about Liam would only fuel one of Zayn’s occasional writing binges, one of those lost weekends where he comes out the other side with little memory of what happened, a lot of empty takeaway containers around his flat, a few new chapters written, and, on one memorable occasion, a new tattoo. Not this time, though. This time he just feels tired.

 

After half a day of writing zero new words for his novel but several dozen tweets about the ineffable impossibility of creation, he decides he needs some fresh air. Well, what he really does is toss his phone across the room, shout “Fuck it,” then go check to make sure his phone is okay, but then he decides to go for a walk. At least he can pretend he’s being productive if he’s doing it to put himself in a writing headspace, right?

 

That’s how he finds himself in town, walking past a street of twee little shops that sell things that he can mock right now as being useless and materialistic but would probably like to use to tastefully decorate a studio if he were being honest and had the money. Whatever. He has a classic wardrobe and a certain je ne sais quoi. He doesn’t need a mirror with a frame shaped like tree roots. He doesn’t.

 

He crosses the street, whose other side is populated primarily with restaurants, pubs, and cafes, including two different coffee joints he’d stopped by in his campaign for inspiration. Remembering that one of them made particularly delicious blackcurrant jam to go with their particularly delicious scones, he stops consideringly outside. It’s not until he walks through the jingling door that he sees who’s sat on a couch by the window: Liam. And he’s not alone.

 

Zayn instinctively dives behind a display of coffee mugs, peering out from around them to get a second look. There’s a woman with him—a beautiful woman, if Zayn is being fair, which he has exactly zero plans to do—on the couch, right up next to him with her hand on his arm. Liam is smiling, which means this isn’t some stranger encroaching on his personal space. This is a beautiful woman that he knows and likes and wants touching him and Zayn is contemplating feeding himself into the coffee grinder.

 

She squeezes Liam’s arm and says something that makes him laugh, and all Zayn can think of is how many months it took him to work up the nerve to touch him like that, how lucky he felt when he finally got the chance. He’s angry and sad and humiliated and he’s got one foot in a basket of seasonal roasts and a pensioner staring at him from a nearby table, but mostly he’s filled with mad, fight-or-flight adrenaline, because he either needs to make what’s happening stop or he needs to stop seeing it. Right now.

 

Flight seems like the safer option, and the one that requires him to have the least motor control. He extracts his foot, whips around, and walks back out the door, praying that Liam didn’t see him as he crosses back to the other side of the street. A taxi nearly hits him, screeching to a stop a few inches from his legs, but in another unkindness the universe fails to put him out of his misery. He looks at the driver and lets out a sort of strangled, wordless yell that utterly fails to encapsulate the depths of his misery before moving on.

 

Okay. Okay. He’s fine. He’s totally fine. He knew that there was still work to do, so this isn’t a huge surprise. He can live with this. And hey, Liam’s the friendliest human to ever walk the earth, after all. For all Zayn knows, he met that girl ten minutes ago and was never going to see her again. Liam would probably let known axe murderers grope in him in coffee shops without putting up a fuss. This is fine. He’s okay.

 

He needs to talk to some gin about this.

 

The gin has a lot of things to say, some of which Zayn may have actually been mumbling to himself face-down on his couch, but when he wakes up with a near-fatal hangover the next morning it’s on top of a sketchpad that he apparently scrawled several thousand words into with a light blue colored pencil sometime over the course of the night. It’s misspelled and somewhat incoherent and some of it isn’t English, but it’s still words—and it’s good, or will be. Zayn doesn’t even bother to shower, afraid he’ll lose whatever streak he’s started. He just puts the kettle on, boots up his laptop, and starts moving things from page to screen, editing as he goes.

 

It’s like the floodgates have opened, and for the rest of break Zayn is as productive as he’s ever been, only stopping writing to eat, sleep, and call up his artiest friends from uni to see if he’s getting the details of being in a band right. His editor is thrilled with him, and he’s pretty thrilled with himself if he’s being honest. He’s on track to finish his final draft by the end of autumn, even a little bit ahead of schedule now, and he’s found himself in one of those good headspaces where he actually thinks he might deserve to get published. Liam might be fighting destiny, but it’s springtime and Zayn refuses to give up. He just needs to change strategy, that’s all.

 

He’s so distracted by his newfound efficiency that he does something he’s rather ashamed of—he forgets about Louis. Okay, he doesn’t forget, not really, but when he remembers it’s always beaten back by the tide of words pouring out of him, always filed under “to do when I take a break,” and he forgets to take breaks. So, by the transitive property—he wasn’t completely pants at maths, no matter what his report cards said—he forgets about Louis.

 

He realizes it the night before school starts again, as he lays out his clothes for the next day, and promptly feels like complete shit. He is the worst friend alive. All right, not the worst, what with the whole slaving endlessly over a musical that wasn’t even his job thing, but still. He’s fallen below his own standards. The only thing to do is to go to Louis’ room before classes start and apologize. He’ll bring along some tea the way Louis takes it, too, as a peace offering.

 

Except when he gets there in the morning, Louis’ car isn’t in the carpark and he’s not in his room. Zayn thinks he might be running late—it’s always hard to come back after break—but he doesn’t show up for lunch, either. Harry does, though, and when Zayn asks, Harry says Louis’ sick and that he texted him as much the night before.

 

“He didn’t say anything about it to you?” Harry says, looking sincere but a bit nervous. Zayn just shakes his head. When he swings by Louis’ room, though, he sees a supply teacher inside, so whether or not Louis is actually sick, he’s definitely not at work.

 

Louis continues to not be at work for the rest of the week, and, aside from a singular and perfunctory i’m sick response to Zayn’s frantic texts, seems uninterested in being in contact with anyone at all. It would be one thing if Zayn thought Louis were really ill, but when Louis is ill he never stops moaning about it, and this radio silence makes Zayn completely sure that there’s something else going on. Something Harry-related. The fact that Harry seems utterly ignorant just makes him annoyed with them both.

 

Finally, when Friday comes and goes and Zayn still hasn’t heard a damn thing, he turns left instead of right when he pulls out of the school carpark at the end of the day and makes his way to Louis’ flat. He sees Louis’ car parked out front, so at least he knows that Louis really is in town. He parks behind him and makes his way up the stairs, taking them two at a time and preparing to put his foot up Tomlinson arse.

 

He pounds on Louis’ door, waits, and then pounds again. Remembering that Louis has started keeping a key under the mat for Harry, he lifts it up, but there’s nothing there. Hm. Zayn frowns and knocks again, and this time shouts too, not particularly caring if he disturbs the neighbors.

 

“I know you’re in there, Lou!” he yells. “Let me in, or I’ll call Liam and tell him you’ve fallen and hurt yourself and he’ll come break your door down with an axe.”

 

There’s a silence, and the quality of it confirms to Zayn that Louis is inside because he can goddamn hear Louis sulking without a sound. Then, finally, come the soft pads of feet over to the door and the clunk of it unlocking before it opens to reveal one perfectly healthy-looking Louis Tomlinson.

 

“You’re a dick,” Zayn says, pushing his way inside. “I’ve missed you. How are you? Have I mentioned you’re a dick?” He pulls Louis into a hug and then punches him hard in the arm. “Where the hell have you been?”

 

“I told you,” Louis says, rubbing his arm, “I’ve been sick.” He gives a halfhearted sniff that ought to get his acting degree revoked.

 

“With what, arsehole disease?” Zayn snorts. “Come off it, mate, I know something’s up, you were dodging me all break.” When Louis stays quiet, Zayn rolls his eyes and pushes him toward the living room and the sofa. “Is this to do with Harry? And London?”

 

Louis flops onto the sofa and looks at him with eyes that are far too innocent. “What are you talking about? Why would that make me dodge you? Which I haven’t been doing, by the way.” He hooks his ankle around Zayn’s and trips him onto the sofa with a grin.

 

“Twat,” Zayn says, reaching out to smack Louis across the head and mostly hitting air. “At least admit you were ignoring my texts.”

 

Louis heaves a sigh, tipping his head back against the cushions. “Fine, I was ignoring your texts. I was ignoring everyone’s texts. I just wanted some time with my family, yeah? It’s not a big deal.”

 

Zayn hums in not-quite-agreement. “So. Harry and London. That has nothing to do with you wanting family time?”

 

“No, Zayn, I did actually love my family before I met Harry, as you may remember,” Louis says. “Just because your life is a constant melodrama doesn’t mean everyone’s is. Harry and London is a thing, and I’ll deal with it, but I’ll deal with it my own way, all right? Let it go, mate, you’re actually worse than my mum.”

 

“She’s a lovely woman and I’m honored by the comparison,” Zayn says as poshly as he can muster, but he lets the rest of it lie. Louis is clearly full of shit, but if he’s this determined not to talk about it then there’s nothing Zayn can do that won’t end in a fight, and he’s missed Louis too much to want to be on the outs with him right now.

 

“So,” Louis says after a beat. “How goes the next great British novel? And the next great British power couple?”

 

“The novel’s good,” Zayn says, putting a mental pin in the London thing to remind him to return to it later in the conversation. He knows a Louis Tomlinson deflection when he sees one, but he’ll take the bait for now. “Really good. Nearly two-thirds done now, I think.”

 

“Wa-hey!” Louis shouts joyfully, throwing his arms up. Zayn flinches a little, startled by the volume of his voice, the exaggerated animation of the gesture. “That’s brilliant, Zayn, seriously. Knew you had it in you. And the eye candy? Is he rewarding your genius with sexual favours yet?”

 

This time it’s Zayn’s turn to sigh heavily. “No. Haven’t made as much headway there—“

 

“Filthy,” Louis says with a broad smile.

 

“Fuck off,” Zayn laughs. “I dunno, I feel like I’ve hit a wall there? Like, I’m stalled with him or something. I’m gonna try a new tactic, I think, see what it turns up. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

 

“I’m sure you will,” Louis says. “Hey, do you want to stay for dinner? I can order something in.” He stretches languidly, and Zayn is reminded of Duchess. Owners and pets really do start to act alike.

 

“Sure,” he says. “Want to ask the other boys ‘round? I’m sure Harry’d be thrilled to see you up and about.” He looks at Louis pointedly.

 

“Zayn,” Louis says, flopping a hand over his eyes. “Please do not meddle. Please. For the love of all that is holy. You get a look on your face like you think you’re being clever and it’s all I can do not to murder you. Leave it alone.”

 

“I’m not going to leave it alone unless I know you’re okay.”

 

“I’m okay!” Louis says, half-shouting. It’s bullshit. Zayn knows it’s bullshit, knew things were bad when he confirmed for himself that Louis has been faking sick for a week. He knows it now, too, can read it in the fact that Louis won’t make eye contact with him. Kudos to Louis for knowing that Zayn could spot a lie in his eyes, but he’s a fool if he thinks that’s all he has to do to throw him off.

 

Zayn would be a fool, though, if he thought that pressing the issue would get him anywhere. As far as he can tell, right now Louis is at least willing to pretend to talk about whatever the hell is going on with him for the sake of acting like he’s okay. Zayn wants to pry, but he’s pretty sure that if he pushes any further Louis will go full-on brick-wall, which doesn’t do anybody any good at all.

 

The waiting game it is, then. “I’ll promise not to meddle if you promise to deal with whatever it is you’re pretending isn’t bothering you,” Zayn says. Louis wordlessly extends his pinkie, and Zayn links it with his.

 

“Deal,” Louis says. “All right, moving on to more important things. Indian or Chinese?”

 

“Chinese, please,” Zayn says, and tries to swallow his worry.

 

L

 

 

If Louis had a single, tiny bit of self-preservation instinct left, he’d end it now. He’d put a stop to this thing with Harry and walk away with a lot of decent memories and at least a little self-respect. That’s exactly what he should do. He should sit down with Harry, explain that hey, they had some laughs, and now it’s run it’s course, so let’s be friends, yeah? No hard feelings.

 

He’s not going to do that. He knows it, the way he knew in school that he would leave every assignment until the last minute and the way he knows he’ll always hit the snooze button at least once in the morning. It’s stupid, and it’s going to fuck him over, and he’s still going to completely fail to end this. Maybe a stronger, smarter person would be able to look Harry in the eye and tell him they didn’t want him, but Louis has no illusions of being that person. So he needs to find a Plan B.

 

The only way this is going to work, the only way Louis is going to make it through the next few months alive, is if it’s just sex. Nothing sweet, nothing gentle. He can’t let Harry touch him like he means something. He can’t let Harry smile when he kisses him, can’t let his thumb trace over the corners of Harry’s mouth when he does. He can’t let himself sink back into this. He won’t. He knew the warning signs before and chose to ignore them. This time he knows better. This time he’ll trust his instincts when alarm bells start going off, when too close, too much starts running on loop in his brain. He can still make this work. He can still win this thing. God knows he’s done it before.

 

Apparently Zayn did not think his promise not to interfere with things extended to include not telling anybody he was back in town, because he wakes up Saturday morning to a text from Niall calling him a dick and a text from Harry that he puts off for an hour before finally biting the bullet and opening it up.

 

a little blonde birdy told me that you’re back!!! hope you’re feeling better.. let me make you dinner tonight, yeah ? miss you xx

 

Louis only spends about ten minutes with his face buried in his hands. He can’t just blindly react to this. That’s how he got into this mess in the first place. He needs to strategize.

 

All right. What are his options? He could say yes, of course, if he wanted to sabotage himself completely and spend a few hours mooning at Harry across his stupid fucking table in his stupid fucking flat. No thanks. Louis can admit that he wants to see him, as much as it makes him hate himself, but he’s not an idiot. He can’t go on like before, not when he knows how hollow it all is. That’s off the table.

 

He could blow Harry off completely. He could ignore the text, or just turn him down. It’s tempting, because it gives him more time before he has to look Harry in the eye again, but he knows it’ll backfire. It’s too out of character. Harry will figure out something’s up and ask questions, or he’ll talk to Zayn and Niall and they’ll ask questions, and if Harry comes to Louis angry or upset and looking for answers Louis is terrified of what truths might come out of his mouth. He’s a good actor, but he’s not that good.

 

It’s decided, then. Harry can’t know anything’s wrong. It has to be down the middle. There’s no chance of a clean break, so it’ll have to be a slow drift, a gradual slide away from him that pulls them apart without Louis having to ever talk about it. Hell, if he plays this right, Harry won’t even notice.

 

Louis pretends he doesn’t notice the way his stomach twists at that thought.

 

feeling better, yeah. why don’t you come over to mine instead? i’ll order in and we can play doctor ;)

 

He taps out the message carefully and hits send.

 

They set a time and Louis spends the rest of the day talking himself up for what he’s going to have to do. He doesn’t care. He does not care. He’s losing Harry and he doesn’t care because why the fuck should he? If he tells himself this enough times eventually it’ll be true.

 

The weather seems to be in on it too, turning dark and stormy in the late morning and pissing down rain for hours, turning the world beyond his balcony gray and heavy. Matches his mental state. He sits out there with his knees pulled up to his chest and lets little flecks of rain splash onto him from the edge of the balcony and watches the time tick down on his phone, and he’s going to do this. He’s going to treat this just like he intended at the beginning, just like everyone he’s been with between age twenty and now, like it doesn’t mean anything, like he doesn’t feel anything about it.

 

Then he opens the door and Harry is there, solid and gorgeous and smiling, and God, Louis is so, so fucked.

 

“Hi,” Harry says, ducking inside and kissing Louis hello before Louis even has a chance to deflect it. Louis at least manages to gather himself enough to step sideways out of his hug, although it’s a near thing, and it’s harder than he ever anticipated to pretend like he doesn’t want it.

 

“Don’t let the rain in,” Louis says. He steps back and leaves Harry to toe off his muddy boots and shake out his hair, and he feels a stab of anger, too, on top of the ache. If Harry’s going to leave him then he could have the decency to make it a little easier on Louis. It’d be nice if he’d be a little less goddamn lovely for a second so Louis didn’t have to spend every second in his presence swimming upstream. Louis likes that anger; he grabs onto it, clings to it. He’s going to need an anchor, and being pissed off is nice and familiar.

 

“Feeling better?” Harry says as he shrugs out of his jacket.

 

“Oh yeah, loads,” Louis lies, as if his sides don’t feel like they’re splitting open as they fucking speak. “Good as new.”

 

“Good, I was worried,” Harry says. Louis is just going to pretend he doesn’t say the last part.

 

Normally Louis doesn’t mind talking to Harry about nothing for hours, but with London looming over their heads like an axe, small talk is excruciating. And besides, he doesn’t care, right? What would he do if he didn’t care?

 

“So,” he says brightly. “London, hm? That’s exciting.”

 

Harry’s eyes light up, and Louis is going to be sick everywhere. “Yeah! I’m really excited, it’s going to be great, I think. I actually talked to my boss—well, my future boss, I guess—over break, and I think we’re going to get along really well, which is good.” He twists his face into a wry little smile. “I’ve never had a proper full-time job before, so it’d be bad if my boss and I hated each other straight off.”

 

How the hell had Louis not seen this coming? “That’s definitely good,” he says, swallowing dryly. He turns his back on Harry and heads off into the kitchen, where the Indian delivery is already waiting on the counter. He pulls a plate down—just one—and starts helping himself. “Went ahead and ordered the usual.” He winces at the phrasing. He’s going to have to start cutting that sort of stuff out, “the usual,” anything that refers to them as a unit or refers to their history. They don’t have a shared history anymore, just like they don’t have a shared future.

 

Harry’s been over for a grand total of five minutes, and now Louis is getting worked up over Indian food. Fucked. So, so fucked.

 

Harry grabs a second plate and starts loading it up, leaning into Louis’ side at the counter. Louis allows it, but doesn’t lean back, doesn’t let himself enjoy the warm weight. He drops his plate onto the kitchen table and moves to the fridge, grabbing himself a beer.

 

“Get one for me too, babe?” Harry says, his mouth already half full of food, and Louis squeezes his eyes shut tightly for a second before reaching back into the fridge and grabbing another bottle. He sets it down next to Harry rather than handing it to him and then moves on to his own plate, safe on the other side of the table.

 

“How was Doncaster?” Harry says once he’s swallowed. “Were the girls all home?”

 

And, okay, this can’t happen. He can’t let Harry anywhere near that part of his life.

 

“Fine, fine,” Louis says. “Good to see them. What about you? Get up to anything exciting?” Harry blinks a little at the brush-off, but takes it in stride.

 

“Did some looking around about flats in London,” he says, looking eager. “Gemma’s helping me out, giving me some advice. I called a couple of places up, seeing if they think there’ll be vacancies in July.”

 

“Sounds fun,” Louis says, tucking into his food with much more urgency than is necessary.

 

“Yeah, the place I’m going to be working is in a really cool part of London,” Harry says excitedly. “Lots to do around there, it’s brilliant. I’ve been to that area before but it’s going to be amazing to actually, like, live there, you know?”

 

“Sounds great,” Louis says flatly. He carries on shoveling food into his mouth so he has an excuse to not to say anything else.

 

Harry nods excitedly. “You’d really like it there, Lou. Lots of exciting artist types. Actors too.” He raises his eyebrows, as if he expects Louis to chime in with how pleased he is that Harry is going to be constantly surrounded by gorgeous eccentric people the second he leaves. All he can hear every time Harry opens his mouth is I can’t wait to leave you, and Harry seems to expect him to nod along happily.

 

“Well, I’m a boring teacher type,” Louis says, “so I’m sure it’ll suit you better than it would me.”

 

“No, I swear, it’s the coolest,” Harry goes on. “There are all these different weird restaurants everywhere, and this place that one of my friends says has these crazy fruit tarts, and all kinds of shops, and there’s a tube stop like twenty feet away from where my offices are gonna be, and it’s London so I’ll never run out of things to take pictures of. It’s perfect.”

 

“Perfect,” Louis echoes back.

 

“I think there should be some flats around there that I can afford, but I’ll have to actually go down there to check them all out first. Rent shouldn’t be too bad if I’m splitting it,” Harry says brightly, and that’s all Louis can take.

 

“Well, I hope you can find a flatmate, then,” he says.

 

It’s silent at the table for a moment, and Louis just keeps staring down at his plate, busily sawing a piece of chicken in half.

 

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I guess.” He chews thoughtfully for a bit, brow furrowed, swallows, and then looks up. “Lou.”

 

Nothing good is going to come from that tone of voice. “Yes, Harold?”

 

Harry doesn’t smile at the nickname, just keeps looking serious. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

 

No, no, absolutely not. Abort mission, release parachute, motherfucking eject. Louis is very familiar with nervousness, but this is absolute hair-raising panic. He has no idea what Harry is going to say, but he’s damn sure he doesn’t want to hear it. He’s never had a conversation that started like this end well in his life, and somehow he doubts this is gonna be the one to break the pattern. This needs to get derailed now.

 

So Louis does the only thing he can think to do and stands up from the table. “There will be plenty of time to talk later,” he says, pitching his voice low. “I’ve got other plans for you tonight.” Harry looks a little exasperated but mostly amused as Louis comes around the table and slides into his lap. Looping his arms around Harry’s neck, Louis leans in and lets his lips brush just below his ear. “I’ve missed you,” he says, and the worst part is it isn’t even a lie.

 

Harry opens his mouth to say something, but Louis seals it shut with a rough kiss. He presses his chest flush against Harry’s and rolls his hips, desperate to get things moving before Harry remembers to finish whatever he was going to say.

 

It takes Harry a few moments to respond, and when he does, it’s only to wrap his hands around Louis’ waist, and God, it shouldn’t be possible. Harry’s hands are impossibly huge and impossibly gentle on him and Louis feels himself crumbling under the touch, and it just shouldn’t happen like this, not when he’s trying so fucking hard to protect himself. It’s like it takes all his willpower to remember the reality of the situation, and Harry shouldn’t have that power over him. It’s not fair. He deserves to be able to sleep with a pretty boy without it feeling like it matters.

 

He tries to grind his hips down again, screws his eyes shut and bites down on Harry’s lip too hard to try to put a little edge on things, but Harry just rubs circles on Louis’ back with his hands, feeling out the spots of tension and digging his fingertips in. He knows this particular routine because it’s one Harry always uses on him when he’s stressed or ill, trying to soothe him. Trying to take care of him. The fucking irony, honestly, Louis could scream. Or at least he would if he could stop relaxing into it, despite his best efforts otherwise.

 

Harry manages to slow things down enough that they’re not going double time anymore, and then he feels Harry’s hands sliding down under his arse and thighs, which means he’s about to lift Louis up and carry him to the bedroom, and his first automatic thought is yes yes yes before his breath stops in his throat.

 

He won’t go to bed with Harry. He’ll sleep with him, sure, he’ll fuck him and he’ll even enjoy it, but he’s not going to go to bed with him tonight. Tonight needs to be quick and dirty and absolutely nothing else. He’s already fucked himself over enough, and it needs to stop here. He swore to himself years ago that he would never let anybody else ever get the best of him, that he would never let anybody get their hands on his heart again. He swore. He never wanted it to get this far with Harry, never wanted this to go beyond sex and friendship and a fun way to pass the time. He never meant to end up here, under Harry’s hands and wanting it too much. But here he is, exactly where he promised himself he’d never be again, and he feels absolutely powerless to get himself out. And he doesn’t understand why.

 

Or maybe he does know why, but there’s no way in hell he’d ever admit it now.

 

If he lets Harry take him to bed, he knows that Harry’s going to lay him out and take his time and make it slow and deep, making up for lost time, and Louis would rather die. He can’t make himself that vulnerable with Harry ever again. Maybe he can’t stop himself from melting into Harry’s hands, but he can at least keep this here. He can keep it fast and physical and he can ignore the fact that though he’s felt guilty during sex before, this is the first time he’s felt it with Harry.

 

He reaches back and grabs one of Harry’s hands and brings it around until his palm is covering Louis’ crotch, pressing down so that the heel of his hand grinds down against him. “Want you so much,” Louis breathes. “S’been so long. Was thinking about what I want to do to you.”

 

“Yeah?” Harry pants into his neck, “Anything, Lou, fuck.”

 

“Want you to fuck me,” Louis says, pulling on Harry’s hair. “Here. Don’t wanna move, just want you in me. Just want you to sit there and let me ride your cock. However I want.” He lets the last words drag out, filthy, and knows it’s going to work when Harry lets out a shaky breath. And fuck, he does want it, wants it even more with the way Harry’s hips jerk up against him. He just has more reasons to want it like this than Harry knows.

 

“Okay, Lou, yeah,” Harry says, pressing wet kisses to his collarbone. “Yeah, God, do it.”

 

Louis starts to work on Harry’s belt, giving a pleased little hum and meeting Harry’s eyes with a wicked look. It’s a fucking mistake, because what’s in Harry’s eyes is so open and simple and affectionate that Louis is honest-to-God winded. Louis leans in and hooks his chin over Harry’s shoulder, and only when he knows Harry can’t see him does he let his face crumple for a moment as he slides his hand into Harry’s jeans.

 

They fuck like that, Louis in Harry’s lap and his chin on Harry’s shoulder, letting everything he’s feeling play out on his face as long as it’s hidden from Harry. When it’s over, he’ll pull back and he’ll look at Harry like he doesn’t care, like it doesn’t mean anything to him more than a warm body under his. He’ll get to his feet and he’ll clean up the half-eaten dinner like nothing ever happened, and he won’t let Harry kiss the corners of his eyes like he likes to do when he’s feeling all loose and fucked out. He’ll step away. He’ll step out of this.

 

For now, though, he shuts his eyes and buries his fingers in Harry’s hair, and he tries to concentrate on the rhythm of his hips and the feeling of Harry inside of him and nothing else, nothing else at all. Nothing.

**Chapter 15.**

 

  
Louis has this thing that he’s always done. It’s a little trick for when he’s lying in bed and doesn’t want to get up but knows he has to, like most mornings of his life. He picks a number, and then he lets himself savor the feeling of being curled up all warm in his bed for as long as it takes him to count backwards to zero, and then the rule is that he hauls himself out of bed all at once and doesn’t look back. It works a treat every time.  
  
It goes like this now.  
  
He allows himself small moments. Obviously cold turkey isn’t an option, as ridiculous as that is, so instead he lets himself have Harry in pieces. A few seconds of Harry’s lips in his hair when he’s making a shopping list. A moment of Harry’s voice singing low and raspy along to the music on the radio. Just little bits, shorter and shorter every time before he cuts them off with some change of subject or sudden shift in momentum or his hand on Harry’s belt. He figures that this way he’ll train himself not to miss it at all. He’ll remember what it’s like not to need any of that. It’ll work.  
  
Helping him along is the fact that Harry hasn’t quite twigged to what’s going on. He notices when Louis pulls away from him sooner than he normally would, or when he doesn’t automatically invite Harry over after work, or when he doesn’t respond when Harry drops one of their inside jokes. Louis knows he notices, because Harry telegraphs everything he feels on his face, and there’s confusion in that hurt, but not accusation, which is good. The longer he can manage to keep pushing them apart without Harry figuring it all the way out, the easier this will be.  
  
At first Louis hates those moments when Harry’s face falls, and he tries to avoid eye contact every time he does something he thinks will cause one. Ignore a touch, then look away. Leave a joke hanging, then look away. He starts feeling like he’s spending half his time with Harry trying not to look at him.  
  
That feels wrong, though. It feels like the coward’s way out, and Louis will be damned if he ever gives anyone reason to call him a coward, so he starts doing the opposite, starts looking Harry dead in the eye as he pulls himself away. It hurts, God, it hurts like hell, but it’s right. He’s not ashamed of what he’s doing. He’s not doing it to punish Harry, he’s doing it to save himself. Harry will be fine. And it’s important to see the effect it’s having. He gets a little voice in the back of his head, and every time he watches a smile leave Harry’s face it whispers  _see, look, he likes you a little bit less now, see how easy this is, see how simple it will be for him to leave you._  
  
Yeah. This is gonna work. It’s already working.  
  
Sometimes he fucks up, which isn’t surprising, since Louis can’t think of anything he hasn’t fucked up at least once. Sometimes, if he’s tired, or tipsy, or just plain weak, he pulls Harry back in like he needs him to breathe. There are stolen moments, hours, afternoons where it’s like it was, where Louis lets himself be fooled. He lets Harry take him home after the footy team wins a match, lets himself touch Harry for hours before he wakes up sweating in the middle of the night and calls a taxi home. One morning he wakes up in his flat, makes up some tea the way Harry takes it, and brings it to him at school, pulling him into a quick, furtive kiss before he hands it over and walks away without an explanation, curling the way Harry smiled at him into a secret place in his chest. Once, Harry falls asleep on his sofa, and Louis takes a picture of him on his phone before he wakes him up and kicks him out. It feels like a relapse every time.  
  
It feels like time starts passing faster, which is kind of it, because Louis doesn’t know how long he can keep this going. He’s shedding days like feathers and counting the time in how long he can go without wanting to hear Harry’s voice, how long he’ll let the phone ring before he’ll answer it, how long he’ll allow Harry to hold him after sex before he pretends to remember something he has to do. It’s a slow, quiet slide, like drowning peacefully. If he turns the music up loud enough in the car he almost doesn’t even notice how deafeningly silent the drive to work and back seems now when he’s alone.  
  
Zayn’s quiet about things, thankfully, and Stan only sends him about one carefully concerned text a week in between his usual texts about inane bullshit, and Niall just tries to keep things light when they’re all together, so he can’t complain about everyone else in his life. Just Harry, and himself, and he’s not good at staying angry at Harry, so it’s mostly just himself. But then, that’s nothing particularly new. Nobody’s harder on Louis than he is. He’s always known that, and he’s never made any effort to change it. At least it keeps him focused on something. Yelling at himself is a familiar refrain by now. It’s comfortable. He’d rather wrap himself up in his old friendly anxieties than face what fresh hell is rattling around in the back of his head.  
  
April’s almost over now, he tells himself. A couple more months, and then it’s done. The beginning of this year went by incredibly fast. If he’s lucky, the end will do the same.

✖

  
  
Louis is marking papers at the kitchen counter while Harry rewatches last night’s match from the couch. They both know the result, 2-1 Man United, but Harry seems content to sit and stare in silence. Louis is sure Harry had a better reason when he invited himself over, but he didn’t bother to remember it.  
  
He lets go of a slow, deflating sigh and starts to underline a sentence, then turns the line into a circle around the entire paragraph.  _For lack of a better word, NO_ , he scrawls on the side, and then drops his head heavily down on the depressingly-high yet-to-be-marked pile.  
  
“Why did past Louis assign an essay he knew present Louis would have to grade?” he whines into the paper. He lifts his head and blows his fringe off his forehead. “Past Louis is the worst.” Harry snorts, but keeps his eyes on the television.  
  
About two minutes and three paragraphs of drivel later, Harry clears his throat. “Lou,” he says, still looking at the game. “Do you think you’ll stay on at the school? I mean, like, permanently?”  
  
Louis looks at him curiously. “What do you mean?” he asks, cocking his head to the side.  
  
“Just,” Harry seems to grasp for words, his brow furrowed, “you always seem stressed out. And, I mean, you just said you hate marking.”  
  
Now it’s Louis’ turn to snort. “Nobody likes marking, Haz. And nobody likes every part of their job.” He picks up the stack of marked papers and taps them on the counter, straightening them out. “I like actually, you know, teaching. Talking to the kids. Getting to know them. Putting on shows. Introducing them to the things I love.” He puts the marked stack to the side. “If I have to deal with marking a few papers for that, I don’t mind. And anyway, if I held out for a job that I loved 100% of the time I’d be waiting a long time.”  
  
Harry doesn’t say anything. “Plus,” Louis adds, “If I was totally happy you wouldn’t get to hear me bitch about it, and I know how that thrills you.”  
  
Harry leans across the coffee table, grabs the remote, and puts the match on mute. “Louis,” he says, and there’s that pause again that has Louis taking his glasses off in preparation, “Are you happy at your job? Honestly?”  
  
Louis puts his glasses down gently on the stack of marked papers. “What?”  
  
Harry’s looking at him, finally. “I mean, I don’t know, Lou, you’re always overworked. You’re only friends with three of your coworkers, if you count me. You’re exhausted all the time, you don’t have time for anything else, you’re always worrying if you’ll have enough money to make ends meet. You’re not even out at work. I don’t know, Lou, it just sometimes seems like it isn’t what you want to do forever.”  
  
Louis’ mouth smiles. How interesting that Harry of all people would complain that Louis gave up too much for his job. “It’s not a perfect job, Haz, but spend a few months out of work and you’d be amazed how your imagination broadens. I even convinced myself that pot noodle was actual food.”  
  
“I’m serious, Lou.” He’s got that pissed-off toddler face on that Louis hates so much.  
  
“So’m I. Ate that shite every day for weeks.”  
  
“Christ, Louis, I’m trying to have a conversation here.”  
  
“And I’m trying not to, Haz, since I’ve got better things to do. Like my work, which you’ve decided I hate,” he says, tapping his finger against the stack in front of him. “Where the hell is this coming from, anyway? Since when do you care what I do permanently?”  
  
“Does it matter? Why don’t you want to talk about this?”  
  
Louis grinds his teeth and turns his face away, trying to tamp down the rapid swell of panic in his chest, because this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. This whole process is only going to keep working if Harry never catches on or says anything about it. All he wants is for Harry to leave it alone and just let them fall apart naturally, because it's all a foregone conclusion and fighting for or about anything is just making it more painful than it has to be for no good reason. Nothing’s going to change.  
  
“Because,” Louis drags a hand down his face, because he has to give Harry an answer, “because you and I would come at this conversation from very different places and it ends with us liking each other less.”  
  
Harry has a look on his face like Louis just admitted to stabbing grannies recreationally. “You don’t know that.”  
  
“Yes, I do.” Duchess is climbing haughtily into Harry’s lap, and he lifts his hands to make room. Louis wonders idly how many more times he’ll watch that happen. Then he wonders when he started counting down instead of up. “Just let it go, Harry.”  
  
“Why are you so sure we’ll disagree?” Harry says, raising his voice. “Why are you so sure I’m wrong when you won’t even talk about it?”  
  
“Why the fuck are you so hung up on this?” Louis snaps, because he was honestly finished with this conversation before it started.  
  
“Because I think you’re too afraid to go after what you really want or to be happy!” Harry shouts, throwing up his hands, and  _no_.  
  
“Who the  _fuck_  do you think you are,” Louis bites out, “To talk to me about fear?” When there’s no response, he continues, because Harry is going to fucking learn today. “Go on, tell me. What the hell do you know about fear, Harry? What have you ever, ever had to be afraid of in your life?”  
  
“That’s not fair—” Harry starts, but fuck that.  
  
“I don’t give a shit if it’s fair, Harry. You think it’s fair to tell me that because my life isn’t exciting enough for you that makes me a coward?”  
  
“That’s not what I was saying.” Harry stands and walks towards the kitchen, staying on the other side of the counter with his shoulders tense.  
  
“First off, that’s exactly what you were saying, so go to hell,” Louis says, voice tight. “Secondly, I don’t know what exactly you think I would be doing if I wasn’t at the school. The only thing I’m qualified to do is teach, so if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay at the job where I’ve got friends and a flat and tenure track, thanks.”  
  
Harry puts both hands on the edge of the counter, staring at Louis across it. “You’re qualified to act. And sing. And don’t tell me you don’t love it, I’ve seen you, you live to perform.”  
  
Louis laughs, really laughs, because this is all just hilarious. “Tried that, didn’t I?” he says. “I spent a year running from audition to audition, sitting in rooms with ten other nervous blokes with my same haircut, and you know what? It didn’t work out. Because sometimes, in the real world, things don’t work out, Harry, though I’m not surprised you don’t know that.”  
  
Harry doesn’t answer that, just stares back at him with a look Louis can’t read, so he keeps going.  
  
“And you know what?” he continues. “I’m glad it didn’t, because I enjoy my life now, as unimpressive as it is. It wasn’t my first choice, but teaching is something I like, always has been, and I’m fucking good at it. It’s not glamorous, but it’s what I do, and I actually make a difference for some of these kids, difficult as that may be for you to believe.”  
  
Harry just looks at him, his nostrils flaring. “That’s not difficult for me to believe at all, Louis, I’m just trying—.”  
  
“Then stop implying that it’s beneath me, or whatever it is that you’re trying to say. Yeah, it’s exhausting, and the pay is shit, but I like it, Harry, and I wouldn’t pick anything else over it, ever.” Harry blinks a little at his forcefulness, but Louis barrels on. “Maybe it’s not good enough for you, or not the way you think life should go, but it’s not your life, Harry, it’s mine. So just. Drop it. And don’t you dare act like it’s the coward’s way out when you don’t know a goddamn thing about it or me.”  
  
“Fine, it’s not my life and I don’t know shit, but stop fucking acting like I’m some naive child.” Harry says, moving around the counter and getting in Louis’ space. He looks angry and tense and fully present and Louis is fucking glad. “If I don’t know things then fucking tell me—”  
  
“I’ll tell you if you can name one thing you know about fear,” Louis says, standing up in a rush that has him half-tripping off his stool.  
  
“I know you scare the shit out of me,” Harry snaps back, grabbing one of Louis’ wrists.  
  
“Good,” Louis says, and reaches out to pull him down into a kiss that hurts.  
  
Harry’s hands are on him in a way that he already knows will leave the kind of bruises he wants, and Louis thinks _at least this still works_. For the rest of the night he doesn’t think anything at all.  
  
The next morning, Louis wakes up to the buzz of his alarm in an empty bed.  
  
He makes toast and stares at it for a bit before picking it up and sweeping it into the trash. He isn’t hungry.  
  
He gets through the workday on autopilot, barely remembering what happened in every class after it’s over. Harry doesn’t come to the lounge for lunch. Zayn takes one look at Louis’ face and decides not to ask, thank God, and cuts Niall off when he starts to. Zayn doesn’t seem that interested in talking himself, so it’s a dreary hour filled mostly with the sounds of chewing.  
  
Harry doesn’t show during his free period, either, but Louis does get a text from him. Louis can’t help but wonder where he is, if he’s sitting in his car or in the gym or in the lounge now that the rest of them have cleared out.  
  
 _sorry. was out of line and picking fights. none of my business. forgive me? x_  
  
The problem is, it’s not a question of forgiving. That’s not what matters. Whether Louis forgives him or not, Harry is still leaving, which means that nothing he does now really matters one way or another, and Louis just doesn’t have the energy to stay angry. His heart is too heavy with everything else. Harry’s still leaving, and Louis still doesn’t have the strength to stay away from him. So. Here they are.  
  
Harry knows now, he thinks, that things aren’t okay. He has to. Maybe Louis’ moments of weakness were enough to hide it before, but their fight last night must have given him some kind of sign. Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe Harry won’t push it.  
  
He leaves the text about an hour and then types out  _come over tomorrow with something sugary and i’ll consider it_. He wavers over adding a final  _x_ , but then finally does because, well, fuck it. It’s not like they won’t end up sleeping together tomorrow, or like he doesn’t have to talk himself out of inviting Harry over tonight. It’s all a fucking mess and he can’t get himself anywhere but farther into it.

**Z**

  
  
Louis always makes fun of Zayn for keeping a spare set of clothing in his classroom, but Zayn knew it would pay off. It only takes one mishap—a geography teacher not watching where he was going with that coffee—to render a shirt unwearable. Thankfully, Zayn’s got a free period, and has time to get changed. He grabs the spare white button-up from the closet of his room and heads to the men’s room. And Louis had called him neurotic. What would Louis do if he’d been unexpectedly spilled on, hmm? Feel bad, that’s what.  
  
Well, actually, he’d come nag Zayn to let him borrow his spare shirt. But that’s beside the point.  
  
Zayn walks into the men’s room and heads straight for the handicapped stall, the one with its own mirror. He quickly undoes the buttons of his ruined shirt, stripping down to the undershirt beneath.  
  
Christ, this is the last thing he needs today. It’s half his own fault, really. He’s incredibly antsy right now and it was a particularly twitchy gesture of his that put him in the path of that rogue geography teacher in the first place. It’s just that—well, he hasn’t talked to Liam for a few weeks now, and he thinks he might be going through withdrawal.  
  
It feels stupid and adolescent, but since the direct, vaguely obsessive approach hasn’t been working, he might as well try to play it cool, right? People always want what they can’t have. So Zayn hasn’t texted Liam in a while. In fact, he won’t do anything at all until Liam contacts him first. It’s a brilliant strategy.  
  
It had better be, anyway, because it’s stressing him the hell out. His eye-bags are getting out of control, and he pokes at them unhappily in the mirror. Puffy. Swollen with the burden of dragging destiny along. Whatever, it’ll be fine. He’s definitely not worried. Liam will call him any day now for sure.  
  
He’s about to pull on the spare shirt when he hears someone else come into the bathroom. Normally it wouldn’t matter, but when he hears the man’s voice he recognizes that it’s Harry. “Sorry, mum, go ahead,” he says, and Zayn realises he must be on the phone.  
  
He’s about to call out a greeting, maybe make fun of Harry for being the mummy’s boy that he is, when Harry continues. “Yeah, no, it’s okay. I’m alone now, I can talk.”  
  
Zayn freezes, his mouth halfway open, and stands motionless as the appropriate moment to reveal himself sails by. He should say something, he really should, but it’ll already be awkward.  
  
Okay, maybe that’s not the main reason. Maybe it’s just that everything has been so off since Harry got the internship and he doesn’t understand what’s happening and nobody will fucking tell him  _anything_  and he’s worried. Is he still a bad friend for standing there paralyzed while Harry has a private conversation if he’s doing it out of concern? Anyway, the stressed note in Harry’s voice has him curious. Zayn’s witnessed a full range of emotions from Harry—happiness, anger, mischief, compassion, utter madness—but he’s never heard him sound this tired.  
  
“No, mum, I’m excited about it too. I’m the one who applied for it, remember? I want this. It’s just—” He lets out a long breath. “I don’t know. Things are complicated now. You know how important he is to me.”  
  
Wait. No. This is, oh God, this is bad. This was a bad idea. Zayn should not be hearing this. When he gets out of his room, he should break into Louis’ emergency scotch—because apparently  _that’s_  an emergency stockpile worth having—and get so blackout drunk that he forgets everything he’s hearing.  
  
“Mum, come on. You’re making it sound a lot simpler than it is,” Harry says. “He’s not ‘just’ anything, all right?”  
  
Zayn winces silently, glancing up into his own huge, panicked eyes in the mirror. He would actually plug his ears with his fingers if he weren’t afraid that any movement would alert Harry to his presence.  
  
“The offer is amazing,” Harry says, sounding like he’s trying very hard to keep his voice even, “I know it is, but I love him too, and, God, um, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want anymore.”  
  
Fuck.  
  
If Zayn weren’t already holding his breath, he would be now. Harry  _loves_  him. Harry loves Louis. And not only that, but he said it casually, like he’d said it a thousand times before. Fuck.  
  
Has he told Louis yet? If he has, Louis hasn’t said a word to Zayn about it. Then again, for being his best mate in the world, Louis doesn’t tell Zayn a lot of things. But he said he would talk to Harry about this stuff, right? It’s been over a month since then. Surely they’ve talked about this. They must have talked about it by now.  
  
He can’t handle the thought of hearing Harry say that he loves Louis before Louis ever hears it himself. He can’t deal with that reality.  
  
On the other side of the bathroom, Harry laughs harshly at something his mother’s said. When he speaks again, he sounds weary, worn-out. “Yeah, I know. I know. This was always—yeah. I’ll talk to him. It’s just, he’s so... I haven’t wanted to—” He falls silent as she interrupts.  
  
Zayn shouldn’t know this. Zayn  _can’t_  know any of this, can’t have inside information on what’s coming down the pipeline for Louis in this quasi-relationship-whatever.  
  
“I will, mum, okay? I promise. I  _promise_ ,” Harry pauses. “I’ll figure this out somehow.” Another pause, and then he laughs again, sounding a bit more genuine this time. “Thanks for the support, I guess? Okay, mum, I’ve got to run, but I’ll talk to you soon, yeah?” A final pause. “Thanks, mum. Love you too. Bye.”  
  
He hangs up the phone and Zayn is briefly thankful for his freedom, but Harry but doesn’t leave. Zayn can hear him pacing back and forth, can hear the soft pad and squeak of his trainers on the floor tile. The footsteps stop, and the sound of the tap running fills the room. There are a few splashing sounds followed by a heavy sigh, and Zayn can picture Harry leaning over the sink, his face wet from where he just rubbed his hands over it.  
  
Finally, finally, Harry leaves. Zayn waits until he can no longer hear his footsteps in the outside hallway before he unsticks his joints. He tries to carry on buttoning up his shirt, but his fingers are trembling slightly, and he feels unsettled all over. What he would give to take back the fleeting instinct of wanting to know what’s going on. He feels guilty, and like he’s violated Harry’s privacy, and sick, and even more confused than he did before. He doesn’t like where any of this is going, and he doesn’t like how unstable it all feels.  
  
He straightens his collar in the mirror, pulling on his spare cardigan over his shirt. He’ll just have to, you know, pretend this never happened. That’s all. Just pretend it was some kind of weird midday fever dream and never mention it to Louis or Harry or anyone ever lest he reveal what a nosy prick he is. And Harry and Louis have already talked about this, so it’ll be worked out. And Liam will call him eventually, even though it’s been weeks, he’s probably just been busy but he’ll definitely call soon. Definitely. Okay. Everything will be fine, right? All of them will be fine.  
  
Maybe Louis was right about the emergency booze supply.

**L**

  
  
It’s a Saturday night, nothing good is on telly, and Louis can’t think of a thing to do that doesn’t involve calling up Harry. He stares at his empty flat. He did things before he met Harry. He lived for two and a half decades before he met Harry. Surely he hadn’t been twiddling his thumbs the whole time.  
  
“This is ridiculous,” he says to Duchess, who’s sat in his lap. He strokes her fur idly. “I know people. I have friends.” She kneads her claws into his leg affectionately as a response.  
  
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a text to Zayn. Zayn will probably be out, doing something that involves a lot of people with excellent bone structure, but it’s worth a shot. He’s seemed a bit subdued lately; maybe he’s moping around too. Misery loves company.  
  
 _bored. movie night? i’ll even let u pick what to watch._  
  
Louis prowls around aimlessly as he waits for a response, marking time. When his phone buzzes he’s checking the refrigerator for the second time, hoping idly that something appetizing will have materialised.  
  
 _sure. be over in an hour._  
  
He lets the fridge door fall closed softly. No emoticon. No “ _x._ ” This is bad. This is unprecedented levels of bad. Zayn once told Louis that he’d broken his wrist via text and still managed at least a winky face.  
  
By the time Zayn reaches his flat, Louis has three kinds of alcohol and two flavors of ice cream on the kitchen counter. He’s laid them out strategically, knowing Zayn will grab for the merlot and the mint chocolate chip and curl up on the couch with them both as soon as he’s through the door. It’s just as well. Louis could probably do with a little sympathy boozing tonight.  
  
The minute he lets Zayn in, though, he bypasses it all and heads straight for the balcony, not giving even the wine a second glance. Duchess hisses at him from the safety of Louis’ room, but Zayn doesn’t even bother to make a snide comment before unlatching the balcony door and walking out into the night.  
  
All right, then. It’s that kind of night, Louis supposes. He grabs the corkscrew from a drawer in the kitchen and the bottle of red, eyeing Zayn’s tense shoulders through the open door as he follows him outside.  
  
“Spill, Malik,” he says sternly as he steps outside, uncorking the wine as quickly as he can.  
  
There’s a tight pause as Zayn sets and unsets his jaw before fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.  
  
“There’s nothing to spill,” he says tersely, tapping a cigarette out of the pack and lighting it in short, tense movements. He takes a long drag before he continues, setting the pack down on the railing. “Nothing that I’m not the last person to figure out, anyway.”  
  
The cork of Louis’ bottle comes loose with a doleful  _pop_. He offers it to Zayn, who waves it away silently. That’s new. Louis takes a long pull himself, not bothering with a glass.  
  
“Well, I’m in the dark,” Louis says, wiping his lips. He steps up carefully, leaning up against the railing next to Zayn. “Catch me up.”  
  
Zayn snorts humorlessly, taking another drag. He stares out at the view, which is less a view of the city and more a view of another housing complex exactly like Louis’. Appropriately depressing, Louis thinks. He wonders if Zayn ever feels as trapped as he does. They don’t talk about it much.  
  
“I haven’t seen Liam all month. Haven’t heard a word. D’you know why?” Louis shakes his head. “Because I haven’t tried to. Because I haven’t done anything to make it happen.” Another drag, and the cigarette is already burnt down almost to the filter.  
  
Louis furrows his brow and is quietly thankful that Zayn didn’t take the whiskey that’s still on the kitchen counter. “I’m not following.”  
  
Zayn laughs quietly, pulling another cigarette from the pack and lighting it with the old one before flicking the butt over the side of the balcony. “I’d think the infinitely cynical Louis Tomlinson would get it right off the bat,” he says.  
  
Louis just blinks at him. Zayn takes another drag.  
  
“He doesn’t care, Louis. All, all this,” he says, gesturing vaguely to himself, “all the time we’ve spent together? Doesn’t matter. I could never speak to him again and he wouldn’t miss me.” He blows a long stream of smoke out into the night air. “Probably wouldn’t even notice,” he says softly.  
  
Louis sets the wine down gingerly. “Zayn. You don’t believe that.”  
  
“I do, actually,” Zayn snaps, still not looking at him, “Because I’ve, Jesus, I’ve considered the fucking evidence, and you know what? If this were actually something, I wouldn’t be doing all the work. I wouldn’t be making all, all the goddamn effort. If this, whatever it is, if it dies the moment I stop bending over fucking backwards, then it doesn’t exist. It’s not anything.” He breathes out hard through his nose. “And I’ve been wasting my fucking time.”  
  
Louis looks nervously at how fast he’s already burnt through the second cigarette. “Zayn—”  
  
“No, Louis,” Zayn interrupts, his voice hoarse. “It’s a waste of time, it’s always been a waste of time, and you’ve fucking known it from the start, so don’t you dare,” he takes a deep breath, “don’t you dare try to turn this around on me now. Not now.” He drops his head down into his hands, elbows braced on the railing. “Fucking destiny. I really thought it was destiny. Christ, I’m so stupid.”  
  
Louis swallows, unsure of what Zayn wants to hear. He reaches back down and picks up the wine again, taking a long sip before he speaks, if only to buy himself a few seconds. “All right. But, even, even if it’s not destiny, that doesn’t mean it can’t still work, Zayn. Most people who fall for each other aren’t, I don’t know, their love isn’t written in the stars.”  
  
Zayn makes a broken sound that’s almost a laugh. “ _Love_. That’s rich. Love. Romance. All of it. It’s always been bullshit, and I’ve been trying so hard to believe in it, like if I just worked hard enough at it I could make it come true. Christ.” He’s flicking his pack back open again and Louis really doesn’t know how to play this.  
  
“That’s, Zayn, that’s not true,” he attempts. He’s not sure what he’s saying, not sure how much he even believes it, but it’s all he can think to do. “It’s not all bullshit.”  
  
Zayn pauses with his third cigarette halfway out of the pack “Yeah?” He puts the pack back down, and Louis hopes this means he’s said something halfway right. “You’re telling me that you believe in love and romance now? Why?” His mouth twists. “Because of you and Harry? You want to enlighten me, then, Louis? Because I am fucking lost, here, so if you two managed to figure something out I’d love to hear it.”  
  
Louis doesn’t say anything.  
  
“Come on, Lou, share the wealth. What did you say when you told him how you felt about him? It convinced him, whatever it was, so convince me.” He drops the butt of the second cigarette and grinds it out with his heel before leaning back against the railing and watching Louis with crossed arms.  
  
Sometimes, when Louis has fights with Zayn—not that this is a fight, he thinks, but it’s starting to feel alarmingly like one—he’ll have these moments of suspension in the middle of it all where he’s suddenly so aware of how much he doesn’t want to be having the argument at all, how much he wishes he could just disengage and they could just go back to normal and act like it never happened. He feels like that right now, but it’s because there’s nothing he can say to that that won’t make things worse, and he knows it.  
  
Louis bites down hard on the inside of his cheek and stares at his bare feet on the balcony and forces the words out. “Well, er, we haven’t strictly speaking—that is, there hasn’t been one time where anyone has exactly, uh, told anyone anything.”  
  
Silence.  
  
It stretches so long that Louis has to glance back up to see what Zayn is doing, and what he’s doing is just staring at him, face frozen and unreadable. Louis takes two steps back.  
  
“What?” he says.  
  
“Louis,” Zayn says, flat. “Tell me you’re not fucking saying what I think you’re saying.”  
  
He reaches for the pack and lights up again, his hands shaking.  
  
“Look, Zayn, it’s not the end of the world just because we’ve never sat down and, I don’t know, fucking defined what we are,” Louis says. He feels his back hit the balcony door. “It doesn’t matter, stop freaking out.”  
  
Third cigarette hanging from his lips, Zayn just looks at him like he’s about to explode. “It doesn’t matter? Louis, he’s  _leaving_.”  
  
Louis feels his jaw clench on reflex. Oh, right, like Louis had fucking forgotten that, thanks so much. “So?”  
  
“So he’s  _leaving_  and you can’t even tell him that you want him to stay,” Zayn says, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ, the two of you have been shagging for what, six months, and you can’t even call him your fucking boyfriend. You can’t even tell him you love him,  _which you fucking do_ —” Louis flinches but Zayn doesn’t even pause “—but you want to look at me and hold up the two of you as evidence for why love is real? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Fuck, Louis, if anything, the two of you are better evidence for us all being fucking doomed.”  
  
Louis feels like his blood his buzzing in his fingers and toes, like he’s sick to his stomach, like he’s right on the edge of saying something he’ll regret. All he can manage is a tight, “He doesn’t want to stay.”  
  
Zayn snorts again, bitter. “And you know this how? Because I’m assuming you haven’t talked about that either.”  
  
“Why would he want to stay?” Louis snaps. He needs something stronger than wine if he’s actually being forced to say these things out loud. The whiskey is only a few steps away, he reminds himself. “He’s going to have a brilliant life in London, what would keep him here?”  
  
Zayn looks at him like he’s as sorry for him as he is angry, which is just about as much as Louis can take. “You.”  
  
Louis spits out a laugh. “Me. Right. Just look at the wonders I have to offer him,” he says, gesturing expansively to his flat. “Who wouldn’t want a life with a, a failed performer who can barely pay his bills and has no plans to do a damned thing with his life?” He rubs a hand over his face. “He’ll be able to find a newer, shinier model of me in about thirty seconds, and who the fuck am I to stop him?”  
  
“You don’t think he gets a say in this?”  
  
“If he wanted a say, he would have had one,” Louis says. “When have you ever known Harry to not speak up when he gives a damn about something? He hasn’t asked about it because he knows what I know, which is that this, this  _dalliance_  or whatever the fuck, has had an expiration date on it from the beginning. Not everything lasts forever. It’s fine.”  
  
Zayn turns away from him and walks to the other side of the balcony, looking east with his back to Louis. “You two are so fucking stupid, I swear to God,” he says, and Louis can see how hard he’s gripping the railing. “You need to get your shit together—actually, no, I take that back,” he says, whirling around. “If you’ve managed take something this good and fuck it up this badly, then maybe the two of you don’t deserve to fix it. If you can’t manage to fucking talk to each other—”  
  
“Fuck you, Zayn, it’s not that easy and you know it,” Louis says, and he’s vaguely aware that he’s shouting and that his neighbors will complain but right now he doesn’t give a shit. “You of all people should know better than to act like it’s that fucking simple for me.”  
  
“Maybe I would,” Zayn says, throwing up his hands, “except you never tell me shit, Louis! Yeah, I know that you’ve got issues and can’t deal with commitment or vulnerability, okay, but I’ve got no clue why! I’m supposed to be your best mate, and God, Louis, I fucking try, but it’s hard when I don’t have a goddamn clue what your deal is. I don’t know if it was a bad break-up, or a lot of bad break-ups, or if it’s something to do with your dad—”  
  
“ _Don’t_ —” Louis snaps. “Talk about shit you don’t understand.”  
  
“Then don’t fucking expect me to be able to read your mind, Lou!” Zayn throws the third butt down into the street below. “For all I know you’ve got a great reason for being so fucking cagey, but you won’t tell me and that’s fine, okay, that’s  _fine_  but then you don’t get to get pissed at me when I don’t understand why you do the shit you do.”  
  
“Well then you could at least stop acting like it’d be so fucking easy for me to do whatever it is you want me to do,” Louis shouts back. “Just because you’re a 24-hour feelings machine—”  
  
“Stop it, Louis, Jesus,” Zayn says, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t give a shit what you say about me, but stop acting like there’s all this shit you can’t do. You can, okay? You could do fucking anything, all right, I know you and you could do anything but you’ve decided that it’s easier just not to try, and I’m done pretending it doesn’t piss me the fuck off.”  
  
“Well I think the same thing about you and I manage to deal with it just fine,” Louis says, too full of fury—who the fuck does Zayn think he is, where does he get off telling Louis what to do when he doesn’t know what it would cost him—to think about whether or not what he’s saying is a good idea.  
  
Zayn frowns and folds his arms. “What d’you mean?”  
  
“I mean that is pisses me off to see you waiting around for some guy when you could have literally anyone,” Louis says, hearing the nasty note in his own voice and not caring even a little. “And you know it, too, you know how many people want you, and you don’t give a damn because you’ve decided that you can only be satisfied with the most unattainable people possible.”  
  
“It’s not like I have a fucking choice—” Zayn starts, but Louis cuts him off.  
  
“Or maybe it’s that you think being in unrequited love makes you more interesting, more like one of the characters in the novels you love so much,” he says, and he sees the look on Zayn’s face twist but he doesn’t even try to stop himself. “And God knows you’re obsessed with being fucking interesting and deep and fascinating, since you’ve never been sure that you haven’t just been coasting by on your looks, which is the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard since you’re fucking  _brilliant_  and would still have a job and a book deal if you were the goddamn Elephant Man, you complete tosser.”  
  
Not wanting to wait for Zayn’s response, Louis pulls the balcony door open roughly and storms back into his flat, going straight for the kitchen and pulling out a glass.  
  
Zayn follows him in as Louis cracks open the whiskey and pours himself more than is probably advisable. “You think I want to be miserable?” he says, bracing his hands against the counter.  
  
“Fucking seems like it,” Louis says as a little bit of whiskey sloshes on to the counter. His hands are shaking harder than he realised.  
  
“You think I wouldn’t do anything, fucking  _anything_ , Louis,” Zayn pleads, “to have what you and Harry have? Or what you could have? Why else do you think I’m so angry?”  
  
“Because you’re a nosy bastard,” Louis mutters into his drink. He takes a long sip, letting it burn all the way down.  
  
“Because I have tried so, so hard to find something real, and you two fucking stumbled into it and now you’re not even trying to hold onto it,” Zayn says. “I’ve been working my arse off trying to get someone to notice me and you can’t be fucked to tell someone you’ve been sleeping with for months that hey, you kind of like them as more than a friend. And maybe I wouldn’t mind if it made you happy, but it clearly doesn’t, which means I’ve got to watch my best mate be stupid and miserable. So excuse me for being a little fucking frustrated.”  
  
Zayn’s voice has dropped off by the end, down to barely a mumble, and when Louis looks up, it’s just Zayn on the other side of his counter, slight shoulders and sad eyes and Zayn. Louis feels some of the heat seep out of him.  
  
The thing is that Zayn is his best friend. And sometimes he forgets how important things like feelings and talking about feelings—things that Louis  _abhors_ —are to him, and he forgets that keeping that from him probably hurts. And that making fun of him all the time for his ridiculous obsessions probably does sting a little. Especially since Zayn is always trying to support him and help him out, after his own incredibly annoying fashion. All right. All right.  
  
Louis sets his glass down, rubs a hand over his mouth, and lets out a long exhale through his nose.  
  
“Okay,” he says.  
  
Zayn stares back at him. “Okay what?”  
  
“Okay, I get what you’re saying,” Louis says. “Or at least I think I do. But I think that you and I come at relationships from really, really different places, and I don’t think it’s fair for you to put your own shit on the way I am with Harry. It’s not the same, and I think you know that.”  
  
Louis takes Zayn’s slight incline of the head as permission to continue. “And it frustrates me to see you so hung up on some guy when it all comes so easily to you, so I don’t have much sympathy for you. It’s hard for me to understand that intense commitment to someone you’re not actually with, because I don’t see how it could end well. But that’s me putting my shit on you. And I guess maybe that’s not fair either.”  
  
Zayn is silent for a moment, thumbing the edge of the counter. “I didn’t mean to make you feel worse about it,” he says finally. “You and Harry, I mean. It just drives me mad. You’re my best friend, all right? I want you to be happy.”  
  
Louis feels personally betrayed by the lump that catches in his throat at that. “I know.”  
  
“And I want you to tell me things,” Zayn goes on, looking back up at Louis. “We’ve been friends for ages and there’s still so much you haven’t told me, and I’ve always tried to make you feel like I was somebody you could talk to about that shit, and it kind of sucks, because I feel like you don’t trust me.”  
  
“Zayn,” Louis says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I do trust you. You know I trust you. God, do you think—there’s nobody else I want helping me clean up all my messes, okay?”  
  
“As if anybody else would,” Zayn says, but there’s affection in his tone and it’s the best thing Louis’ heard all night.  
  
“Trust me, I know. And it means a lot to me, I swear,” Louis says. “It’s just... that shit, I don’t talk to  _anyone_  about that. I don’t really even talk to my mum about that. I don’t even like to  _think_  about it. It’s not your fault, it’s mine, because I’m a fucked up emotionally constipated weirdo, all right? But if I was going to talk to anybody about it, it’d be you. And you sure as hell have gotten closer to it than anyone else, if that’s worth anything.”  
  
Zayn nods a little but stays quiet, so Louis continues.  
  
“And I’m gonna work on that, okay?” Louis says. “I’m gonna tell you everything, the whole sordid story, start to finish, when I’m ready. But I’m not ready yet.”  
  
He holds Zayn’s eyes for a minute, then reaches out and tugs on one of his hoodie strings.  
  
“All right?”  
  
At last, Zayn smiles a little, and Louis feels some of the weight on his chest lift. “That’s fair,” Zayn says.  
  
“Excellent,” Louis says, taking a deep breath and deftly hiding his eyes with a glasses cleaning maneuver. He picks up the glass of whiskey and dumps it down the drain. “Can we not fight anymore right now? I hate it.”  
  
“Yeah, me too,” Zayn says. He comes around the counter and catches Louis by the sink, hauling him into a rough hug. “We’re still good?” he says, muffled by Louis’ shoulder.  
  
“Still good,” Louis says as he squeezes back. Neither of them lets go and Louis feels it, so powerfully all of the sudden, how much he’s been missing having somebody’s arms around him lately, how much he’s needed somebody to take care of him, and he’s not going to bother hating himself for it tonight. Zayn rubs one hand through the hair on the nape of Louis’ neck and it’s not nearly enough to fix everything else but it’s enough that for the moment, Louis doesn’t feel alone. Because Zayn’s here, and Zayn’s always going to be, and Zayn’s heart is hurting for somebody else too.  
  
“Love you,” Zayn says.  
  
“Love you too,” Louis says back, and it feels good to say it to someone, honestly. Feels like home.  
  
They break off finally, and he’s pretty sure he’s got Zayn’s snot on his shirt, and that’s okay. “So,” Louis says brightly. “We need to find you a rebound, eh?” Zayn punches him on the arm and Louis punches back and then they’re laughing and climbing onto the couch with half-melted ice cream and making fun of the late night adverts on telly, and it’s all right. Everything may be terrible, but this, at least, is all right.

 

 

 

**Chapter 16.**

  
Harry’s leaving at the beginning of July.  
  
His internship doesn’t start until halfway through the month, but he wants to head down to London a couple of weeks in advance so he can have time to get settled. He’ll be working in central London, so he’s hoping to find a flat somewhere near a tube stop that isn’t terribly expensive and getting some help from his parents. He won’t need a car there, so he’s shipping most of his things over ahead of time and his mum and sister are going to come collect his car from Manchester and keep it for him in Holmes Chapel.  
  
Louis knows all of this clinically, just information tacked up inside his head that he chooses not to process. Harry rattles it all off one afternoon over a sandwich on Louis’ couch, and Louis waits until he’s done speaking and then pushes him onto his back and ignores the whole thing completely.  
  
That’s the only kind of sex they have anymore, and it’s starting to feel like the only kind of conversation they have anymore either. It’s not anything definite. It’s not like the first time Harry ever kissed him, or the look on his face when he told him about the internship, some sharp thing pinning down a point on the map of his life to mark exactly when and where something happened. There’s not a moment when Louis knows for sure that they’ve fallen apart. They just keep drifting.  
  
Harry hardly ever sleeps over anymore, and Louis isn’t sure whose idea that was. He imagines he can’t have seemed particularly welcoming the past few weeks, immediately rolling off of Harry and onto the far side of the bed as soon as they’ve both gotten off. So okay, maybe he started it, but still. What is he supposed to do, let Harry hold him when they both know that they’re just killing time? Louis’ not willing to play make believe, but that doesn’t make him the bad guy. He remembers the first time Harry went back to his own flat in months, two fingers on his tense back for half a second and then the sound of Harry pulling his jeans back on and letting himself out, and the dull ache in the back of his throat.  
  
He hates how much he misses small pieces of Harry. He misses Harry’s hands around his waist and his lips against the side of his neck in the mornings when he’s making his tea. He misses Harry’s stupid voice mumbling nonsense about pop music and art and vinyl records at all hours of the day and night. He misses fairy lights on the ceilings and the way things felt when they were good, misses the way Harry’s face used to light up when he saw him. He wishes he didn’t miss any of it.  
  
Mostly, he wishes he’d never let himself get used to it. Or that at least he hadn’t known better. Because he had, he’d absolutely known better, and now that means he doesn’t even have the right to be upset, because he brought this entire goddamn mess upon himself. If he hadn’t known better, at least he wouldn’t make himself nauseous every time he was self-indulgent enough to miss something he knew wouldn’t last.  
  
And this is what he wanted, wasn’t it? He wanted things to fade out, he wanted Harry to let him get away. He wanted to move on, right?  
  
Fuck. It doesn’t matter what he misses or what he wants. It never mattered. He was an idiot to think it did.  
  
Harry goes hunting for a flat in London and doesn’t mention it to Louis until he’s already there, just a text from Victoria Station that he won’t be around that weekend. So that’s that, Louis assumes. There’s officially future for Harry somewhere else, another flat all picked out and signed for, and he’s not invited. It’s not an outright rejection, he guesses, but it’s enough. It sure as hell isn’t an invitation. It’s enough to sting, and it’s enough to make it inescapably real.  
  
Whatever. He slept alone for twenty-six years, he can do it for the next twenty-six too.  
  
He figures he should start preparing now, as much as he can. The first step is to start cleaning out his flat. He doesn’t have to get rid of everything that reminds him of Harry; he probably couldn’t without burning the place down, anyway. He just needs to get rid of the things that remind him of Harry-and-him.  
  
There isn’t a huge amount of physical stuff, thank God. The one major thing is the bear. He still has the stuffed bear Harry won for him at that carnival a million years ago stashed away in the back of his closet, and he can’t stand its glass eyes staring at him every time he gets dressed anymore. He can’t bring himself to throw it out, though. He tries, but it just looks at him all accusingly from the bin.  
  
His rescue comes in the form of a toy drive at the school for the local children’s hospital. Early one morning, Louis lugs the bear into the school and drops it off in one of the big colorful collection boxes in front of the cafeteria. He pats it on the top of the head once before walking off, and then feels like a complete twat. At least no one saw him.  
  
What he doesn’t count on, though, is that he has to walk to the computer lab during his free period, which takes him by the cafeteria. And Harry decides to come with him.  
  
Louis hopes like hell there have been enough donations to cover the bear up, but he curses inwardly when he sees that the head is still poking out of the box. Harry is in the middle of a rant on the terrible management of the England national football team when he spots it.  
  
“Is that—“ he starts, and then trails off, his pace slowing a bit. He doesn’t stop, though, just catches up to Louis and walks next to him in silence. They only get a few more yards before Louis can’t endure it.  
  
“Figured a sick kid would get more use out of it than I would,” he says quietly.  
  
“Yeah, no, it makes sense,” Harry says quickly. “I just—no, you’re right.” He’s quiet for the rest of the hour, though, and when they walk by the cafeteria again on their way back to Louis’ classroom Harry stares at his phone the whole time.  
  
Hopefully Harry thinks that Louis can give the bear away because it doesn’t mean much to him. Hopefully he never figures out that it’s the exact opposite.  
  
Once his flat is clear of incriminating objects, Louis starts cleaning out the rest of his life.  
He starts with weeding out Harry’s music from his iTunes, which is no small feat, since there’s so much of it. He deletes almost all of it, because even the stuff that he really likes has become unlistenable because it all reminds him of Harry. He doesn’t think about there being consequences for that until Harry is in his classroom during his free period and gets an itch to listen to a particular song.  
  
“Pull up that album I gave you last month,” he says absentmindedly. “The folky one with the female singer.”  
  
Louis knows which one he means, but it won’t do any good. He searches for a lie, can’t find one, and gives up. “Oh, um. I don’t have it anymore.”  
  
Harry looks up at him, expression unreadable like he’s waiting for Louis to say something else. Louis doesn’t. “Oh,” Harry says. “Okay. What about Ed Sheeran’s new album?”  
  
Louis winces internally, but there’s nothing to be done. “Don’t have that one either.” He’s not going to apologize.  
  
“Ah,” Harry says. He doesn’t say anything else for a long time that afternoon.  
  
The next day he doesn’t come by Louis’ room at all during free period. Louis spends that hour berating himself every time he glances at the door, half-expecting him to rush inside with flushed cheeks and some excuse for why he’s late. It doesn’t happen.  
  
Harry’s in the teachers’ lounge for lunch like always, though. He greets Louis with poorly-hidden nervousness in his eyes, but Louis doesn’t ask. Harry can do whatever he wants with his time. It’s fine. Louis just got used to it, is all. Harry wove his way into Louis life long before they started sleeping together, and picking apart those threads is going to take some time. It’s fine.  
  
If he’s being honest, it had kind of started to feel strained during those times anyway. It’s hard to face it, because they had become such fast mates, but the tension between them has taken its toll, and Louis finds himself enduring awkward pauses more often than not when they’re alone these days, wrung out of words he can say out loud and keeping everything else under lock and key. There’s not much else left, and it hurts, but that’s what it is now. That’s what he’s chosen.  
  
He wishes it were still winter so he could hide from all of this inside his coat, so the air would be cold on his skin and he wouldn’t feel like crawling out of it all the time, but time keeps passing and it’s more than halfway through May now. Outside it’s warmer and softer and sunnier, and Louis feels at odds with everything. He goes home alone at night and sits on the kitchen floor in shorts and an old t-shirt, feeling the cool tiles against his thighs and shutting his eyes against the memories that dredges up.  
  
God, he hates how much he doesn’t want Harry to go.  
  
At least it’s almost over, he thinks. He may not be able to let go of Harry on his own, but at least soon he won’t have a choice. Somehow that seems like a mercy, like he can let go and relax soon enough. Like freezing to death. It’s just like freezing to death.

**Z**

  
  
It’s a sorry fucking state of affairs, Zayn thinks.  
  
Harry and Louis are worse off than he ever imagined, and he’s powerless to do anything but sit there and watch two of his best friends make each other miserable because they won’t fucking admit they’re in love with each other. Seeing it every day is like one long root canal that won’t end, and that’s on top of things with Liam, which are nonexistent at the moment and have been that way for a while. He’s given up entirely by now. Liam is probably very happy with his beautiful nameless girlfriend, looking effortlessly handsome and getting felt up in coffee shops all over the country. How nice for him.  
  
He stands, staring into his fridge, and contemplates the eternal question: suck it up and eat the last of the unappetizing leftovers, or go get take-out? The leftover stir-fry looks truly heinous, but if he goes outside he’ll have to change out of his comfy t-shirt and sweatpants, and he really is not feeling up to dressing like an adult. Maybe he’ll split the difference and order in a pizza.  
  
No wonder he and Louis are best friends. They’re equally pathetic and equally incapable of fending for themselves like grown humans.  
  
Zayn’s just about to give up on dinner too when he’s startled out of his reverie by a knock on the door. He frowns into the fridge. He didn’t order food in earlier and forget about it, right? That would be a new low.  
  
He slumps over to the door and pulls it open, ready to repel whatever neighbor has had the misfortune to require his assistance this afternoon. Morning? Probably afternoo—  
  
Liam is standing in his doorway. Zayn doesn’t remember taking any hallucinogenic drugs recently, and yet there Liam stands, looking all wholesome and plaid with his hand on the back of his neck, just like Zayn remembers him. He’d kind of been hoping that he’d been imagining that, or that he’d exaggerated it in his own mind, but no. He really does look like that.  
  
“Hi,” Zayn says blankly, standing there in the least attractive clothing he owns.  
  
“Hi, Zayn,” Liam says, smiling sheepishly. Zayn just blinks at him.  
  
Liam shifts his weight back and forth. “Sorry, this is so rude, I should have called first. I don’t know why I didn’t, actually, I just. I don’t know. Sorry.”  
  
“What are you doing here?” Zayn knows he’s being rude, but right now all he can deal with is gathering as much information as possible before choosing what kind of meltdown he’s going to have. Efficiency is important.  
  
“It’s, um. I just hadn’t heard from you in a while, and I, uh. Did I... do something wrong?” The look on his face is the picture of dejection.  
  
Oh, Zayn had thought he’d reached the absolute bottom of his self-loathing, but he had been so wrong. A year and a half of trying to be with this person, the happiest person Zayn knows, and all he’s managed to do is make him sad. Of course.  
  
The nice thing about hating himself this much, though, is that the next decision he makes isn’t even that difficult. What’s a little more humiliation at this point? If it takes that apologetic look off Liam’s face, it’ll be worth it.  
  
“Liam, I—no, hold on. Come inside,” Zayn says, holding the door open. “D’you want tea? I can put the kettle on.”  
  
“Oh, no thank you,” Liam says, stepping across the threshold. “Unless you wanted to have some? Because, I mean, go ahead if you do.”  
  
“Nah, just felt like the thing to say,” Zayn says, scratching the back of his head. “Um, here, sorry, hold on a minute.” He starts clearing off the kitchen table, picking up the debris that’s accumulated on the extra chair he never uses. “Here, sit down. Sorry.”  
  
Liam sits down carefully, watching Zayn like he thinks he’s going to take off and leave a human-shaped hole in the wall at any second. Zayn isn’t entirely sure he won’t, but he sits down across from Liam anyway. He can flee in five minutes. Right now he has something he needs to do.  
  
“So,” Zayn says, looking across the table at Liam’s upsettingly earnest face. He’s got a little line between his eyebrows. Zayn has never wanted to draw someone so badly. “You asked me if you’d done something wrong.”  
  
“I just—I’m sorry, I feel really silly,” Liam says. “It’s just that we were talking all the time? And hanging out? And then it all just stopped, and I got kind of paranoid about it, and I didn’t want to ask about it because I thought it’d be weird.” He fiddles with the sleeves of his shirt and half-smiles down at them. “But then not asking drove me crazy and that’s why I’m showing up on your doorstep like a nutter. Which, sorry about that again.”  
  
If he apologizes again Zayn is going to burst into flames out of sheer guilt. “Don’t be. It’s good, I’m glad you did. Gives me a chance to explain myself, I guess. Because I’m the one who did something wrong, by the way. Not you. You didn’t do anything,” Zayn says, forcing himself to keep contact with Liam’s eyes, huge and brown and terribly relieved.  
  
“Okay, I’m glad you’re not cross with me or anything,” Liam says, “Really glad. But—”  
  
“Why have I been avoiding you? Right. This is going to sound crazy, because it is, but just bear with me, yeah?” Zayn takes a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. He looks Liam right in the eye and keeps his voice as steady as he can. “I was avoiding you because I was trying to play hard to get. Because I have feelings for you. Have for a long time, actually. But I was being an idiot, because all I’ve done is make you feel bad, and I can’t be sorry enough for that. And you really, really haven’t done anything wrong.”  
  
Well. That’s out there. Not planned. Not calculated. Just done. It feels like the whole world should have shifted on its axis, but his kitchen still looks exactly the same. He still feels like the same person, just with slightly higher blood pressure. Liam even still looks mostly the same, though his expression is significantly more shocked than it was thirty seconds ago.  
  
“Is it really that surprising?” Zayn has to laugh. He kind of wants to laugh hysterically, actually. “I’ve—God, you’ve got no idea, have you? I’ve been a complete idiot over you since I met you.”  
  
Liam’s mouth drops open a little. “What?” he finally manages. Well, at the very least, Zayn knows what it’s like to not be the speechless one now.  
  
“Sorry, this is a lot to spring on you at once. It was just...” Zayn says. He scrubs a hand over his face. “You showed up out of nowhere and you were  _perfect_  and I knew I’d never meet somebody like that ever again, and I kept thinking if I could just get you to notice me then maybe I could have a shot, and, ugh, I’ve been so stupid. Trying the hard to get thing was just the last in a very long line of very, very stupid things I’ve tried to get your attention.”  
  
“No, Zayn,” Liam says, eyebrows knitting into a frown, and damn him for being so earnest and nice when Zayn is hanging what little is left of his dignity out to dry. “Don’t say that. You’re not stupid.”  
  
“No, I am. Really,” Zayn barrels on, determined to prove that Liam has no reason to apologize to him. And the honesty actually feels pretty good. If this bridge is getting burned, he’s gonna burn it all the way to the ground. “You want proof? Okay, how’s this: there’s nothing wrong with my building. I just told you that because I thought maybe you’d come ‘round to check and I’d get to see you.”  
  
He pauses to see Liam’s reaction. He doesn’t seem appropriately horrified, just sort of stunned into silence, so Zayn grabs a shovel and digs his grave deeper. “I reported the sprinklers on my hall at school because I wanted to see you, Liam. I put Louis’ cat up a tree because I wanted to see you. More than once. I, I almost fucking started a grease fire in Louis’ kitchen, to see you. I accidentally caught my own hair on fire and then I spent a week hiding in closets every time you came around because I was too embarrassed to let you see me, all right, that’s what I do with my life. Because I really like you and I had no idea what to do about it.”  
  
Liam is staring at him now, unblinking, and Zayn just keeps plodding on. Fuck it. Fuck all of it. Being afraid is boring, keeping secrets is boring, and not telling this incredible man how much he adores him is the most boring of all.  
  
“I wanted so badly to make you to notice me and I didn’t know how else to do it. I had it in my head that we were supposed to be together and if I wanted it bad enough that it would happen, but I’m stupid, I’m so stupid, because you don’t even know. A fucking year and a half of my life, all of this shit, and you don’t even know. I should have told you from the beginning, when you were standing on my doorstep with Yeats, because I wanted to be with you even back then. I’m sorry for every second I spent making silly plans and not letting you know how wonderful I think you are. Because I do.” This is the most powerful Zayn has ever felt in his life.  
  
“Zayn...” Liam says, and there’s no way Zayn is interested in hearing the end of that sentence before he says his piece. Liam can let him down easy once he’s finished.  
  
“I think you’re wonderful,” Zayn says, forcing himself not to drop his eyes to the floor. He doesn’t know half of what he’s saying before he says it, but it’s too late to stop now. “I’m a tragic idiot and half an arsonist besides, and I don’t even care that you probably think I’m mental now, because I honestly deserve it. And if you don’t want to see me ever again, that’s fine. But not before I’m sure that you know that you’re the best person I’ve ever met, and the bravest, and the most impossibly kind.” He takes a deep breath and smiles. “And you’re cute, too, for the record. And it’s fine if you don’t feel the same way. I don’t expect you to, since I’m pretty sure you’ve got a girlfriend anyway. It’s okay. Honestly, I’m glad you didn’t fall for my bullshit, because it was pathetic, and demeaning, and I needed to learn that. So thanks, I guess. I regret all that stuff. But I don’t for a second regret the way I feel about you.”  
  
Zayn can’t think of anything else to say, and finally looks away, opting to stare at the floor. He sits there, catching his breath, and tries not to think about all the months of effort he’s destroyed. It’s honestly okay. This is the best he’s felt about himself in a very, very long time.  
  
The silence stretches out until Liam finally breaks it. “I haven’t got a girlfriend.”  
  
Zayn’s head snaps up. “You don’t?”  
  
Liam shakes his head. “No.”  
  
“Okay,” Zayn says. “I, I saw you in town with someone the other day, and the way you were acting—I just assumed, I’m sorry.”  
  
Liam shakes his head ruefully. “Not your fault. Pretty sure I know who it was. She’s my ex, we’re still friendly. Probably looks a little too friendly if you don’t know us. But no, I don’t have a girlfriend.”  
  
“Okay,” Zayn says. He doesn’t know where to go from there. The fact that Liam hasn’t run screaming from his flat is probably a good sign, though. There’s another long silence, just the two of them sitting at Zayn’s dinner table, but finally Liam breaks it again.  
  
“I,” Liam starts, looking unsure, and then he cuts himself off and he’s... he’s  _smiling_. “Can I kiss you?”  
  
Zayn feels, as if from far away, his entire brain shut down.  
  
“What,” he says.  
  
“Sorry, I just,” Liam says, face pink. “I figured you were done with your speech, and I had to sit and process it for a second, but I have, and I want to kiss you now. Is that okay?”  
  
Zayn is broken. This is the moment he’s been waiting for and he is broken, can’t process it, can’t remember how to form words. He manages a nod and a strangled sort of noise, and Liam’s smile spreads across his whole face, eyes scrunching up at the corners that way Zayn’s always loved.  
  
“Okay,” Liam says. He leans forward across the table, and when he reaches out to touch the side of Zayn’s face, his palm is sweating.  
  
And suddenly Zayn is hit with the realisation that Liam is nervous. Liam runs into burning buildings for a living, and Zayn makes him  _nervous_. No matter what else happens here, that’s—that’s something.  
  
Zayn is still so frozen in shock that he doesn’t realise he’s supposed to be doing anything until Liam is leaning in slowly, so slowly, and then Zayn leans in too to meet him halfway across the table and tilts his chin up a fraction of an inch and Liam’s lips catch on his and Zayn stops breathing.  
  
It’s the gentlest, most careful kiss of Zayn’s life, the table between them and his hands flat on the smooth surface. Liam’s lips are even softer than he ever thought they would be. It’s all Zayn can do to press cautiously back, afraid that any sudden movements will spook one or both of them. Liam drops one final peck against Zayn’s mouth and pulls away, his hand hand reaching out to rest on top of Zayn’s.  
  
Zayn stares at Liam, and Liam stares right back. He scuffs his feet on the floor bashfully, looking at Zayn through his eyelashes. “I’m not very good at speeches, but, uh. Yeah. Me too,” he says. “I mean, not the arson, but, you know, the other stuff. I like you, too.”  
  
Now it’s Zayn’s turn to say, “What?”  
  
Liam looks somewhat confused. “I mean, I—I like you, Zayn, I  _like you_  like you—”  
  
“No, I know what you’re saying, just—really?” This can’t possibly be right. “Why didn’t you say anything?”  
  
Liam fixes him with a look that’s so dead serious that Zayn wants to kiss him all over his face. “Do you have any idea how terrifying you are? You’re so clever, and creative, and good at everything. And you’re gorgeous, by the way, though you already know that. You’re way out of my league. You’re just—you’re cool.”  
  
Zayn just sort of gapes at him and then starts laughing. “I am, Christ, I am the least cool human being alive, Liam. Did I mention that I accidentally lit my own hair on fire? For God’s sake, I have two boxes of comic books that I keep under my bed. Also, you’re beautiful, shut up.”  
  
Liam blushes and squeezes Zayn’s hand. “I like comics too, so that just makes you cooler, actually.”  
  
“Really? Who’s your favorite?” Zayn asks, and this isn’t really the time, but still.  
  
“Batman,” Liam says, because of course it’s Batman. “You?”  
  
“Green Lantern.”  
  
“Nice.”  
  
“You realize this is just proving my point that you should have said something earlier,” Zayn says softly, trying not to let a smile split his face entirely in half.  
  
Liam at least has the decency to look bashful. “I dunno, Zayn, I thought you were flirting with me sometimes? But then I thought you were flirting with Louis and the rest of the lads too, and I could never really tell, because I’m crap at this stuff, so I just sort of gave up, I guess. I couldn’t really see what you would want with me..” He swallows and looks almost frightened. “Zayn, I’ve only really ever been in two real relationships, both with women I thought I was going to marry. I’m not artistic or any sort of genius. For what it’s worth, that poetry book was a gift for my sister. I just go to work and see my family and think about getting a dog. Spending time with you and your friends is the most excitement I’ve had in a very long time, and I’m not sure I ever really kept up.”  
  
Zayn turns his hand over and laces his fingers with Liam’s. He’s considering quitting his job and turning complimenting Liam into a full-time career. “First off, they’re your friends too, now, and you fit in just fine. Secondly, I don’t want all these things you’re upset that you’re not. I want you, even if you don’t read poetry. I want someone who’s genuine and sweet and likes Batman and who’s steady enough to balance out all the ridiculous shit in my head and my life.” He grins. “Not that I don’t intend to corrupt you a little. But I still just want you.”  
  
“Okay,” Liam says. “Okay. Good.” He brings their linked hands up to his mouth, and presses a kiss to the back of Zayn’s hand. “I want that. You and me.”  
  
Then he smiles, and his tongue darts out to lick his bottom lip, and whatever part of Zayn’s brain that was focused on trying to react to this like a reasonable human evaporates into a cloud of dust.  
  
He lets go of Liam’s hand long enough to move around the table and pull him upright, hands fisted in his shirt. Liam is laughing as Zayn reels him into a kiss—their second kiss, and isn’t that the best thought Zayn has ever had. Normally Zayn has moves, would be sweeping someone off their feet by now—possibly literally—but as it stands he’s pleased with himself that he manages to pull Liam to him as he slumps back against a wall. Liam wants him. Liam knows everything, and Liam still wants him. Zayn thinks he might be shaking.  
  
Liam’s hands go to his waist, steadying him, and Zayn slides his up to cradle Liam’s jaw. He wants to deepen the kiss, wants Liam’s tongue in his mouth, but they’re both too damn happy. Neither of them can stop smiling, pressing endless grinning kisses to each other’s lips. Liam is laughing against Zayn’s mouth, and it’s the best sound he’s ever heard in his life.  
  
They slow down after a few minutes, the kisses growing longer and longer as giddiness gives way to something else. Zayn tilts his head slightly, because that’s about all the motor control he’s got, and the feeling of Liam’s lips opening under his is like a goddamn thunderbolt to the spine. He darts his tongue inside, just a quick tentative slide against Liam’s, and is rewarded by the low noise Liam makes in his throat. Liam curls his tongue around Zayn’s but then pulls away suddenly, giggling.  
  
“Everything okay?” Zayn says, his hands falling to Liam’s shoulders.  
  
“Yeah, perfect, I’m sorry, just,” Liam pauses, running his hands up and down Zayn’s sides. “I’ve never done this with a guy before?” He rushes to continue, probably seeing Zayn’s slightly panicked expression. “Don’t worry, this is—I am very sure that I want this. I’ve just got stage fright, I guess.”  
  
Zayn just gapes at him. Liam shouldn’t be able to surprise him after all this time, but by now Zayn should have stopped expecting Liam to be like anyone else he’s ever met.  
  
“Did we not just talk about how I’m, like, head-over-heels for you?” he says, and God, he can’t believe he gets to say that out loud. “You’re not going to scare me off, okay? I want whatever, Christ, whatever you’re willing to give me.”  
  
Liam nods, smiling. “Okay.” He pulls Zayn in close and nuzzles his nose against his cheek. “God, Zayn, I knew I would like this, but,” and Zayn can hear him swallow, “I  _really_  like it.”  
  
And fuck, it’s not fair to say things like that, not right after Zayn had made a mental note to take things slow. He pushes blindly at Liam’s shoulders, backing him up against the kitchen counter, and takes his mouth, groaning at the way Liam sucks on his tongue. Liam chases after him as he pulls back, swiping his tongue across Zayn’s bottom lip before biting down so, so gently, and Zayn has to break away to catch his breath. He looks up at Liam, and if he weren’t already halfway in love with him, the expression of proud astonishment on Liam’s face would have done the trick.  
  
“I think,” Zayn starts, lost for words. “I think it’s safe to say that I like it too.”  
  
“Yay!” Liam says in a small voice, smiling with his entire face, and okay, maybe it’s more than halfway. He reaches out, and Zayn’s not quite sure what he’s doing until he feels Liam’s index finger and thumb close quickly over one of his earrings before pulling away. “Sorry,” Liam says guiltily, “I’ve just always—sorry.” He looks like a puppy about to get smacked with a newspaper.  
  
 _Always_ , Zayn thinks wonderingly, and grabs the collar of Liam’s shirt. He’s got no finesse, just pulls Liam into a rough, clumsy kiss that he hopes says everything he doesn’t have words for. God, this is nothing like how Zayn imagined, and so, so much better.  
  
“Could you,” Zayn says, breaking the kiss even though every nerve in his body is screaming at him to do exactly the opposite, “could you, God, can you give me a second? I need to...” he trails off helplessly, gesturing over his shoulder toward the bathroom.  
  
“Yeah, of course,” Liam says, and Zayn has to kiss him again one last time before breaking away.  
  
He leans back against the bathroom door as soon as he gets it shut behind him. Breathe, Malik, fucking  _breathe_. If he has a stroke and dies before he ever gets a chance to see Liam naked he will never forgive himself.  
  
He pulls his phone out of the pocket of his sweatshirt, because he feels like if he doesn’t tell somebody about this right now he’s going to burst. He wants climb up on the roof and shout about it until his neighbors call the police, honestly, but for now a text to Louis will do.  
  
 _DESTINY ACHIEVED :D :D :D :DDDDDDD XXXXXX_  
  
It takes him a couple of tries since he can’t seem to get his hands to stop shaking, but finally he manages to hit send. Then he switches his phone to silent, drops it on the bathroom counter, and wrenches the door open again.  
  
He’s confronted with the sight of Liam standing in his living room, hands in his pockets. Zayn is suddenly reminded of old cartoon movies, the ones he used to watch when he was a kid and had vague ambitions of being one of those artists one day. You could always tell what parts of a scene were going to move because they were animated just a bit brighter than everything around them. That’s what Liam looks like in his flat, like the realest thing in the room, waiting on him.  
  
“Do you want to go to dinner with me?” Liam blurts out, immediately flushing red as soon as the words leave his mouth. He looks like he wants to backtrack or apologize, but he doesn’t, just looks Zayn right in the eyes.  
  
Zayn wanted to shout before, but this makes him want to sing. He knows there are a million love songs in the world, but he can’t think of a single one that would cover this, that could capture the feeling of seeing such a wonderful person be brave enough to offer you everything you’ve ever wanted without blinking.  
  
Maybe he’ll write one.  
  
He leaves the bathroom door and walks over to Liam, not stopping until he can hook his chin over Liam’s shoulder. “Yeah, I’d love that,” he says softly, murmuring the words into Liam’s neck and slipping his arms around him.  
  
Liam returns the embrace, rocking them back and forth slightly. “Good, because I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you that for months.” Zayn can’t help but laugh again, shoulders shaking under Liam’s hands. “I’m serious!” he says, but he’s smiling.  
  
“I know you are,” Zayn says. “I’m laughing at myself because I’m infatuated with an idiot.”  
  
Liam just tugs him closer and kisses him quickly. “A complete idiot. But I’m infatuated with an arsonist, so I guess we’re even.”  
  
“Are you—” Zayn swallows, afraid to ruin the moment. “I’m really am sorry about all that stuff. It was ridiculous and dangerous and hopefully just romantic enough that you won’t send me to prison.”  
  
“I mean, it’s not my favorite thing about you,” Liam says thoughtfully, running his hands up and down Zayn’s arms. “It makes me sad that you thought you had to do that stuff. And if I weren’t, you know, completely biased I’d probably be more concerned. But assuming you didn’t actually hurt anybody and you’re not going to do it again, I think I can be convinced not to turn you in.” He leans in for one more kiss, and then he pulls Zayn into another hug. ”Okay, firestarter, let’s go get dinner.” He presses his lips to Zayn’s temple. “Let’s go to dinner now.”  
  
Zayn tries to clear the haze in his mind. The feeling of Liam’s hands stroking up and down his back isn’t helping. He thinks back to the time his phone had shown. “It’s... it’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”  
  
“Who cares?” Liam pulls away. His eyes are soft as they run over Zayn’s face. “I think it’s been put off long enough, don’t you?”  
  
Nodding somewhat hysterically, Zayn slides back into Liam’s space for a joyful kiss. This is happening, and it’s real, and it’s theirs. He leans his forehead against Liam’s, grinning in relief, and lets go of the year-and-a-half-long breath he’s been holding. “I’ll get my coat.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 17.**

  
After the initial text message and a two hour phone call the next day during which Zayn explains every moment in elaborate detail, Louis sees nothing of Zayn except at work. The rest of his free time is entirely spent holed up somewhere with Liam, probably doing things to each others’ bodies hitherto unknown to the natural world. Or maybe not, since Liam seems pretty vanilla, but it’s not like Louis would know otherwise, because Zayn has hardly come up for air for two weeks now. Louis honestly expected to have to endure hours upon hours of updates on every perfect moment of their perfect new relationship, but so far, Zayn has been surprisingly quiet on that front. He’s probably too wrapped up in Liam to bother.  
  
Whenever Louis does see Zayn, it seems that being with Liam is doing him extremely well. He looks better than he has in months, practically floating down the halls with the air of a man who has reached the highest point of happiness and leveled out at nirvana, whistling and swaying his hips as he goes. It’s not just his aura but his actual  _looks_ , the brighter eyes, the springier hair, the way his shirts hang on his shoulders. It’s like everywhere he goes, the whispery sound of pants hitting the floor follows.  
  
Meanwhile, Louis wakes up in the morning and stares at his own zombie face in the mirror and tries to force himself to be pleased about the fact that Harry has stopped calling or coming around altogether.  
  
He’s happy for Zayn. He really, truly, honestly is happy for him. He loves Zayn, and he wants him to be happy, and he has been rooting for Zayn and Liam in his own way for a while. Plus he likes Liam, and he’s sure he’ll enjoy having Liam around when he starts coming ‘round for more than just whisking Zayn off to lunch at some sexy and exotic location practically every day.  
  
So maybe Louis is jealous. A little bit. He’s not going to delude himself into thinking he could ever make a relationship like that work, but he’s jealous that they can. It’d be nice, he thinks, to be capable of having something like that, instead of what he does have, which is sleepless nights and cold sweats and stale bread because he can’t even muster up the energy to go to fucking Tesco's.  
  
Naturally, Liam and Zayn want to go out for a group dinner to celebrate their two-week anniversary, because apparently  _that’s_  a thing. Liam makes a reservation for five and Zayn invites the rest of them personally, and Louis would like nothing better to make an excuse and stay home, but he knows how much this means to Zayn. Plus, after the week he spent faking sick and moping around his flat like a tosser, he knows Zayn would see right through it and probably force him to come anyway.  
  
He arrives at the restaurant fifteen minutes late and the other four lads are already seated at a table in the back, Liam and Zayn grinning at him from adjacent chairs, Niall already demolishing the basket of bread, and Harry. It’s the first time he’s seen Harry in over a week, and he feels his heart climb into his throat when Harry looks up and dimples at him nervously. The only open seat is the one between Harry and Zayn. Louis tries to swallow his panic.  
  
“Evening, lads,” he says, too bright. He sits down, right on the edge of the chair, and folds his hands on the table. “What a momentous occasion, eh?”  
  
The dinner goes pretty much exactly how Louis expected at first. Liam and Zayn are appropriately nauseating but admittedly adorable, all smiles and bashful handholding and blushing whenever one of them refers to them as “we” or “us.” It’s the first Louis has really, properly seen them together like this, and he has to admit that they’re stupidly cute together. The first time Liam actually says the word “boyfriend” out loud at the table Zayn looks like he’s torn between swooning out of his chair and jumping up onto the table and ripping his clothes off. Niall keeps teasing them, but that only seems to please Zayn more. As it turns out, being teased about being too obnoxiously smitten with the new boyfriend he spent a year and a half trying to land is not something Zayn seems to mind.  
  
Niall has just shifted his attention from taking the piss out of Zayn to flirting with the pretty young waitress when Louis feels Harry’s hand slide onto his thigh under the table.  
  
It takes every bit of restraint in Louis’ body to not jump out of his skin and upend the table at the touch. He hasn’t had Harry’s hands on him in what feels like ages, and it’s a bit of a shock now, in the middle of this restaurant with Liam and Zayn beaming at each other across the way. Louis sits, resolutely still, eyes forward, and carries on eating his salad as if nothing at all is amiss. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Harry doing the same.  
  
The whole night he’s been carefully avoiding Harry’s eye, pretending like he hasn’t been itching to talk to him for weeks. Louis hasn’t even really talked to him aside from regular friendly conversation, shallow little talk about the drink menu or whatever. This was how the plan was supposed to go. Harry isn’t special, so Louis won’t treat him like he is. He’d been doing all right, but it’s harder now, almost impossible with Harry touching him.  
  
Harry’s hand stays there on his thigh, the warmth and weight of it painfully familiar. It’s all Louis can think about, all he can focus on even as Liam carries on awkwardly trying to eat with his left hand so he can hold onto Zayn’s with his right. He wants to reach down and cover it Harry’s hand with his own, squeeze until Harry’s fingernails cut into his skin, leave some marks. He wants everything he shouldn’t, and he’s been doing better at pretending he doesn’t now that Harry hasn’t been around as much, but here it is again.  
  
Eventually he excuses himself and heads off to the toilets, desperate to get away for a minute. He’s standing over the sink, considering how much filling it up and dunking his head in would ruin his shirt, when the door swings open and Harry steps inside.  
  
Louis meets his eyes in the mirror, and Harry’s face is unfathomable.  
  
“Haz,” he says automatically, forgetting for a moment that he’s not supposed to use that nickname anymore. Something in Harry’s face goes completely broken, and then Harry crosses the tiny room and grabs Louis by the shoulders.  
  
Louis lets himself be pushed backwards until his back hits the wall, and Harry crowds him up against it, breath coming short and fast. He holds Louis still like that and looks at him, just looks at him, and Louis can barely stand to look back. He’s never felt so exposed in his life, and he’s terrified that Harry’s going to see everything on his face, every last bit of how much this means to him, everything he can’t afford to let out. It’s the same reason he’s never let Harry get a picture of his face, because he’s terrified, as good as he is at hiding, that something in his eyes is going to give him away.  
  
Harry’s eyes dart from Louis’ eyes to his lips, and it’s all Louis can do not to tell him to just do it, just kiss him already.  
  
Louis lets his eyes fall shut and waits, hoping it’ll hurt, hoping Harry won’t be kind about it. A long, heavy moment passes, and then another, and then Harry sighs and Louis feels the fingers on his shoulders dig in before going slack. He feels Harry’s breath on his skin as he presses a kiss to Louis’ forehead, and then he’s gone. It’s over as fast as it happened, and Louis is left alone with an empty room and his own exhausted reflection in the mirror over the sink.  
  
For an infuriating moment, it feels like Louis hasn’t made any real progress with this at all. It’s still there. No matter how much distance they gain, it’s still there, that maddening chemistry between them, that thing Louis can’t name. He can’t make it go away. He can’t make it stop.  
  
He hunches over the sink, head in his hands. Why can’t he just make it fucking  _stop_?  
  
He spends five minutes scrubbing his hands raw at the sink for no reason, just to feel like he’s got some of this off of his skin, before toweling them off and heading back to the table.  
  
Thankfully Liam is now regaling them all with a story of somebody he rescued from a collapsing building or something, so Louis doesn’t have to worry about enduring silence. He sits back down next to Harry, who is still and quiet, swilling the little bit of water around in his glass. He tries not to notice the palpable tension between them.  
  
A few minutes later a free dessert arrives, some massive chocolate fudge confection covered in blazing sparklers courtesy of Niall, who lied to the waitress and told her it was Liam’s birthday. Liam turns bright pink as all of the waiters congregate around their table to sing him happy birthday, and Louis even manages to clap along with the rest of the restaurant as Zayn pecks Liam on the cheek before Liam turns and kisses Zayn on the lips.  
  
Niall calls for a toast, and Harry volunteers to do the honors. He pushes his chair back and stands, lifting his glass into the air and clearing his throat a little before he begins.  
  
“When two people find each other,” Harry says, smiling down at the ridiculously happy couple, “it’s a pretty amazing thing. The best thing, really. Liam and Zayn, the two of you are proof of that. It took a while, but with a little help, destiny finally got its way. The rest of us couldn’t be happier, mostly because now we don’t have to listen to Zayn whine about it anymore.” Niall laughs, and Zayn blushes and flips Harry the bird. “But seriously, you guys, congratulations. You two are really, really lucky.”  
  
Louis drops his eyes down to his plate so he doesn’t have to see the look on Harry’s face, but he can’t stop himself from hearing Harry add softly, “Just... really lucky.”  
  
It’s quiet at the table for a moment, and then Niall shouts, “Cheers!” and they all say it back, downing gulps of the champagne Liam insisted upon buying. Louis is determined not to feel anything about it.  
  
Finally they pay the bill and head outside, and everyone starts hugging goodbye. Louis knew this was inevitable, but his heart still stutters when he finds himself face to face with Harry and his broad chest and waiting arms, the last ones who haven’t said goodbye. Three months ago they’d be going home together, kissing each other goodnight in Louis’ bed hours later, the shape of each other’s mouths stained on their skin. Tonight, it’s this.  
  
He lets Harry wrap him up in his arms, and God, it’s like a shot of morphine in his veins, making him go soft and pliant. He can’t help it. In a moment of complete weakness, he lets himself slide one hand up into Harry’s hair, and he feels Harry’s hand fist in his shirt in response.  
  
Then he realizes what he’s doing, and he breaks off immediately, taking three giant steps backward.  
  
“Right, this was lovely, must run, night boys!” Louis chirps, waving robotically at them all. He turns on his heel and marches off to his car and doesn’t look back.  
  
As he drives home, he tries to come up with a contingency plan. If being close to Harry over the course of a meal is becoming too much for him now, he needs to be distracted. He needs to keep his hands and his mind busy until Harry goes. From now on, he decides, he’s going to throw himself into his work every spare minute he has. It’s not like he doesn’t have piles of marking to get through before the year ends anyway. Maybe if he’s buried under projects and essays and report cards, he’ll be too overwhelmed to feel anything even close to desire.  
  
Sticking to the plan, the next week Louis tries to get a jump start on marking his student’s final projects. He’s sitting at his desk during his free period, working his way through a soliloquy that seems particularly unconcerned with the constraints of English grammar, when there are three sharp raps on the door.  
  
He looks up to see none other than Mike Kendall in his doorway, tall and ginger and smiling a little goofily. “Hi, Mr. T!” he says, his baritone voice booming. Louis half winces and half grins at the nickname, which caught on among the footy players during  _Grease_  and hasn’t vanished yet.  
  
“Hi, Mike,” Louis says, leaning back in his chair. “Has the theatre’s siren song drawn you back to darken my doorstep?”  
  
Mike just laughs. “Nah, sorry. Just wanted to see if you were coming to the match tonight.” Ah, that’s right. The last match of the footy season is tonight, some tournament or another. He remembers Harry mentioning it a few weeks back, talking about how it was lucky the season ended just before he had to leave. Louis has no plans to attend.  
  
“I’m not sure—“ he starts, but Mike jumps in, all cajoling enthusiasm.  
  
“C’mon, Mr. T, please?” Puppy eyes shouldn’t be possible from a hulking teenager, but they’re coming out nonetheless. “Me and the lads helped you out with your thing, it’d be sick if you came to see us at our thing.”  
  
He does have a point. Plus, Louis has a soft spot for his former T-Bird. The kid has spirit, even if he sometimes reminds Louis of those walking trees from Lord of the Rings. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says, tilting a look at Mike that makes it clear that’s all he’ll get.  
  
“Brilliant!” Mike says, punching the air. “Okay, I’ve gotta get to class. Bye, Mr. T! See you tonight!” And then he’s gone.  
  
Louis hasn’t been to one of the football matches in what has to be months. He’d gone regularly for most of first and second term, sitting in the middle of the stands and yelling his lungs out, usually with Zayn or Niall or both in tow. He hasn’t been back since Easter, though.  
  
So when he finds himself at the pitch that night, it all feels a little alien. He climbs all the way to the top of the stands, moving to a back corner away from the cheering parents and friends. He pulls on his sunglasses and sips on the iced coffee he bought on the way and tries not to feel horrendously out of place.  
  
Harry’s there, of course, on the sidelines with his boys, but he doesn’t ever look up at the stands. It’s not like he’d be expecting anyone to be there. Louis tries not to watch him, but since he couldn’t manage that when he’d known Harry for two weeks it’s not like he’s going to pull it off now. It’s almost nice, being able to watch Harry without worrying about talking to him or touching him or any of it.  
  
He’s a blur up and down the sideline like always, shouting out instructions and encouragements to the players in a hoarse voice, coordinating with the head coach, and checking in with the kids on the bench. Louis’ been a teacher for a while, and he knows what it looks like when somebody cares about what they’re doing. He sees the way the leftback grins when Harry whoops after he nabs the ball from the other team’s striker, sees the team captain point at Harry when he scores a goal. Those boys love him. Louis can’t imagine that Harry won’t be loved wherever he goes, that people won’t always flock to him. He wonders what that’s like.  
  
Then it’s halftime, all tied up at 1-1, and Louis expects the players to come off the field. Instead, about half of them stay on the field, with some of the substitute players joining them. One of the subs has a microphone with them, and he hands it to the team captain, a compact midfielder with a shock of blond hair.  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Tony Stockton,” a ragged cheer goes up from the stands, “Thanks. Anyway, I’m team captain, and I’m also a year 13. Since this is our last match of the season, we’ve brought all of the year 13s out to say goodbye. These lads have all been committed to this team from day one, and we’d really appreciate it if you would be so kind as to give each one a round of applause as I read out their names.”  
  
He goes down the list, and the crowd cheers for each one. It’s always easy to pick out the family of the boy in question, with loud whoops coming from small groups in the stands. Finally, once every name has been called, there’s a mass round of applause, and Louis finds himself clapping along as well. He doesn’t really know any of the year 13s well, but he remembers how it felt to have something like this end, something that felt like it ran your whole life while you were in school.  
  
Tony clears his throat into the microphone, and the cheers die down. “We actually have another farewell tonight,” he says, humor in his voice. “We’re also saying goodbye to our irreplaceable assistant coach, who will be leaving us for the capital! The poshest footy coach who isn’t really that good at footy, Mr. Harry Styles!” All the boys start clapping, and one of the younger lads on the sidelines gives him a little shove towards the pitch. Harry jogs out to join the year 13s, grinning ruefully, and is immediately engulfed in a massive group hug.  
  
He looks very young, and very, very happy.  
  
Louis doesn’t realize he’s moving until he stumbles halfway down the stands and nearly upends a family of four. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, stepping around them and finally reaching solid ground. He’s not being subtle, and if Harry has looked up he’s almost certainly seen him, but Louis would rather not know, so he keeps his eyes on the ground as he rushes back towards the carpark.  
  
He hurries back to his car as fast as he can, trying to force down the sudden panicked nausea. All he can think about—all he’s running away from right now—is how happy Harry looked, happy and loved, and how he was born to be happy and loved and probably always has been, and how soon somebody else is going to be making him feel that way, and how much he doesn’t need Louis for that. He never did.  
  
He can’t run fast enough.

✖

  
  
 _at the pitch. come here._  
  
It’s almost midnight on the last day of June, and this is the first thing Harry’s texted him in weeks.  
  
Harry’s leaving tomorrow, and Louis hasn’t spoken to him in two weeks. He hasn’t seen him since the football match, hasn’t kissed him in a month. It’s almost midnight on the last day of June, and Harry is going to leave tomorrow. Harry hasn’t called, and Louis will never forgive himself if he’s the one who breaks, and it’s time to let it go for good. Or at least it was supposed to be, until the text message.  
  
He paces through his flat, wishing he was less fucking bone-tired so he’d at least have the energy to throw the tantrum he wants to throw. He wants to break half the things in his flat. He wants to tell Harry to go to hell. But God knows he doesn’t have the strength to do any of that.  
  
He knew what he was going to do as soon as he read the text message, no matter how much he pretends to deliberate with himself over it. He’s going to meet Harry at the pitch. He’s spent too much time revisiting the night the two of them were alone there, told Harry too much about what that night did to him. He’s going. Fuck it, he’s going.  
  
The drive is short, and he swears at himself the whole way.  
  
The stadium lights are off but the gate’s been left open for him, and when he makes his way through it and around the stands, he can just barely make out Harry sitting in the middle of the pitch, broad shoulders under the moonlight and the Manchester light pollution. He’s not moving, just waiting, knees drawn up to his chest and arms folded on top.  
  
Louis looks out at his back in the distance and tries so hard not to think of this person as Harry. He tries not to think of all the things that body represents in his world, of all the places he’s left his marks on it, of the heart inside it and the way it feels when it’s pressed up against his own chest. He tries so hard not to think,  _this is the last time._  
  
He makes his way out to the center of the pitch slowly, counting his steps. When he reaches Harry, he sits down on the grass across from him and waits.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says, not looking at him.  
  
“Hi,” Louis says lamely. He’s got no idea what else to say.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says again.  
  
“Already said that,” Louis says automatically, and Harry just barely stops a tiny smile.  
  
It’s silent after that, just the two of them breathing and the distant sounds of the city around them. Louis doesn’t know what the hell either of them are doing here, or what he’s supposed to be doing, or what Harry wants from him at all.  
  
“Your train tomorrow,” he hears himself say, “it’s, it’s at two, right, or is it—”  
  
He never gets the rest of the sentence out, because Harry surges forward onto his knees and crushes his mouth into Louis’ before he can say anything else. Louis tips over backwards with the momentum of it and Harry follows, crawling between Louis’ thighs and digging his fingers into his hair.  
  
Louis takes about half a second to catch on, and then he slides his hands up under Harry’s t-shirt and thinks _yes, God, just fuck this out of me_ , because maybe they can get each other out of their systems like this, maybe they can just leave it all here. He digs his nails into Harry’s back and opens his mouth up to his tongue, feeling the grass of the pitch tickle the back of his neck, and wonders if this at least will let him stop thinking for a while.  
  
But then Harry’s pulling back, hauling Louis up to a sitting position with him before shrugging off his jacket. “Here,” he murmurs, and leans around Louis to lay it out flat behind him before pushing him back down with insistent hands, the smooth material in between Louis and the wet grass.  
  
His fucking  _jacket_ , God, Louis can’t expend anything on attaching some kind of meaning to that. He doesn’t care, categorically refuses to care, and would prefer to skip straight to the part where Harry fucks him until he screams, but Harry seems content to press bruising kisses to Louis’ mouth for the next thousand years.  
  
Normally Louis would be more than capable of speeding things up himself, but somewhere along the line Harry’s snuck his hands to Louis’ wrists and pinned them down in the grass above his head. Frustrated, Louis nips at Harry’s lips a little too hard, and he mutters, “Come  _on_ ,” when Harry pulls away with a hiss of pain.  
  
He looks up at Harry, straight into his eyes for the first time since he got there, and he knows exactly what he wants must be written on his face. Harry’s own face is unreadable, and he gives Louis a short shake of his head, but he does press his hips down hard into Louis’, biting his own lip as he watches Louis’ head loll back. Louis pulls one leg up and around Harry’s, pulling him closer.  
  
“Louis,” Harry says. He’s looking at Louis like he can see straight through him, and Louis can’t play it this way.  
  
He squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t.”  
  
When he opens his eyes, Harry is still looking at him steadily. “Don’t what?” he says, voice flat, his hands still on Louis’ wrists. The light from the city, so far away and muted, is the only thing moving on his face.  
  
Louis is arching back up into Harry, is saying words. “Don’t,” is what he’s saying, pressing his lips against Harry’s neck, kissing along his jaw. He leans up close, pressing one desperate kiss to Harry’s mouth, then another.  
  
Both of them have their eyes open, and Louis finds himself staring at eyelashes when Harry mumbles, “Don’t  _what_?” against his lips.  
  
Louis’ eyes fall closed and he moves by muscle memory, pressing another kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth. He thinks  _you know what_  when he tugs on Harry’s bottom lip with his teeth, thinks  _you know I can’t say it_  when Harry’s hips move against his.  
  
“Come on,” he whispers again, and it sounds so loud in the empty dark.  
  
Harry just ducks his head, lightly kissing Louis’ neck again and again, his grip on Louis’ wrists not giving an inch. Suddenly he bites down, his teeth scraping well above what Louis’ collar would hide. It goes straight to Louis’ dick,  _yes yes yes_  sparking all the way down his spine, but—  
  
“Careful,” he hisses, “marks.” Harry freezes, his breath hot on Louis’ skin, and he lets go of Louis’ wrists. Louis can hear the soft sound of Harry’s hands as they move down to fist in the jacket underneath them, and Harry pushes his head blindly into the juncture of Louis’ shoulder.  
  
It’s silent on the pitch, but Louis still feels the soft “ _Please_ ” more than he hears it.  
  
Louis can’t control his hands now that they’re free, and he smoothes them down the line of Harry’s back before reaching up to tangle them in his hair. The way the soft strands wind around his fingers feels hellishly familiar, and oh, Louis will never, ever talk about this.  
  
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Yeah, Haz.”  
  
Harry breathes out harshly, his entire body wracked with it, and then he’s back to work, sucking hard at Louis’ throat and sliding one arm down to slip under Louis’ waist where his back has arched up off the ground. Louis can feel a second heartbeat in his neck, throbbing under Harry’s lips, and he knows the mark it leaves will be livid and obvious and still not enough.  
  
After what feels like years, one of Harry’s hands finds the back of Louis’ thigh where it’s wrapped tight around him and slides up until his palm settles on the swell of his arse, and Louis’ breath catches in his throat when Harry digs his fingers in. There’s something about the way Harry’s touching him, something possessive, fingers spread all the way out like he’s trying to count him up in handfuls and cover as much of him as he can at once. It makes Louis feel very, very small.  
  
Louis’ shirt is almost rucked up to his armpits by now, but neither of them seem particularly concerned with it, so he settles for getting his hand between them and under Harry’s shirt again. He presses his palm up against the skin of Harry’s stomach and it’s burning hot and trembling against his touch, and he doesn’t let himself memorize the way his heart turns over in his chest at that. All he memorizes is the noise Harry makes when Louis tightens the leg around him and the way the muscles under his hand go taught when he cants his hips up.  
  
Harry’s grip on his arse tightens, palming it before sliding his hand up and dipping below his waistband to feel skin instead. He lifts his hips up a little bit, just enough to take the edge off while he leans in to kiss Louis again. This time he takes it so slow it almost hurts, ghosting over Louis’ lips until Louis has to close the distance himself and then holding onto his tongue for long enough that Louis isn’t prepared at all when Harry’s hips drop back down and grind him into the pitch.  
  
The hand under Harry’s shirt closes down hard on Harry’s belt buckle in response, and Harry swears when Louis changes the angle of their hips. They move together like that, rough friction and Louis’ face in Harry’s neck, until Louis starts working on the fastenings of Harry’s jeans.  
  
“ _Lou_ ,” Harry says, and Louis freezes, because Harry’s not allowed to say his name like that anymore.  
  
He opens his eyes again, more out of panic than anything else, and even in the dark he can see Harry’s lashes fanned out on his cheeks. He stays like that for a moment with Louis frozen underneath him, and then he presses one more kiss to Louis’ mouth and starts crawling backwards.  
  
Louis drops his leg from around Harry and props himself up on his elbows to watch him shift down to settle in between his thighs. “This okay?” Harry mumbles as his practiced hands make quick work of Louis’ belt and fly. Louis only manages a nod, but Harry must not see it, because his head snaps up at the silence. “Lou? Okay?” he asks again, insistently this time.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Louis says. Harry nods, his face serious, and then slips his hands into Louis’ jeans and boxers, sliding them down his thighs. God, Louis is  _so_  fired if they get caught, but when has that stopped them before? Harry wraps his hand around Louis’ already half-hard cock and bends his head to take it into his mouth, when Louis finds himself reaching out to stop him.  
  
“Wait—” he hears himself say, voice rough. Harry looks up at him, and in the moonlight he’s as beautiful as anything Louis’ ever seen. “Could you just—just touch me?” Louis grinds out around the stubborn lump in his throat. “Just touch me and,” oh, he hates himself, “and kiss me.”  
  
Harry looks at him for a long moment, closes his eyes in a way that looks like it hurts, and then nods again. “Hold on,” he says, scooting back. One by one he carefully pulls off Louis’ shoes, then pulls his jeans and boxers all the way off, folding them and putting them to the side. Half-naked and lying on Harry’s jacket, Louis is grateful that the pitch lights aren’t on. This is as exposed as he’s ever felt in his life.  
  
Harry moves back up to sit between Louis’ legs, dragging the tips of his fingers along the line of Louis’ thigh. Wrapping his right hand back around Louis’ cock, he slips his left arm under and around Louis’ waist to haul him up close, almost into his lap, the material of his jeans rough against Louis’ skin. Thrown by the sudden movement, Louis clasps his arms around Harry’s neck to regain his balance, his nose bumping softly against Harry’s cheek before they find their bearings, mouths slotting together like gravity.  
  
Spreading his left hand across the small of Louis’ back, Harry picks up a slow pace on Louis’ cock with his right, firm and sure and enough for Louis to gasp against his lips. Louis slides his fingers under the collar of Harry’s shirt, desperate for the feel of his skin somewhere other than the white-hot points of contact under Harry’s hands and mouth. Harry tugs gently on Louis’ bottom lip and then pulls away, dusting kisses along his jaw up to his ear, then dropping to his neck again. When he nips at the mark he left earlier it’s a sharp pain that makes Louis yelp, but he still turns his head to give Harry easier access. It hurts, but God, it feels good to just let Harry take whatever it is that he wants and not fucking think about it. It feels good that there’s anything he wants at all.  
  
Louis can hear his own harsh breathing, feel the way his chest is expanding rhythmically to meet Harry’s in counterpoint with the hand on his cock and the teeth at his throat. He loses track of time, and there’s no telling how many minutes pass before Harry licks gently over what can only be a massive bruise and moves back up to Louis’ mouth. Feeling liquid and drugged, Louis slides his hands up to Harry’s face and cradles his jaw, angling his head to better slip his tongue into Harry’s mouth.  
  
Harry shivers under him and his hand squeezes on Louis’ cock, slippery from where Louis is already leaking. Louis can’t help but push up into his slick grip, knowing he’s making needy noises and not caring a bit. Harry must hear how desperate he is, because he makes a soft sound of assent against Louis’ lips and slides him down off his lap. He lets go of Louis long enough to pull off his sweat-soaked t-shirt, tossing it over to the pile of Louis’ clothes, as Louis does the same. Still fully-dressed from the waist down, Harry rubs a thumb along Louis’ cheekbone before carefully lifting his glasses off and setting them on top of their clothes.  
  
Pushing him back down onto the outspread jacket, Harry noses at the sparse hair on Louis’ chest before sucking hard at one of his nipples, making Louis dig his nails into the back of Harry’s neck. “I’m gonna fuck you, okay?” Harry murmurs against his chest. “You want me to fuck you?” His hand slides down to roll Louis’ balls between his fingers as he speaks, and Louis can already feel tremors building in the muscles of his thighs.  
  
“Yeah, Hazza,” Louis manages, his breath hitching, “I want you to, I want you—” and then Harry is rolling off him and getting to his feet. He toes off his shoes and socks and takes something out of his pocket before sliding off his jeans, no pants underneath. He’s hard, as hard as Louis is, and Louis wants to put his hands on him. The moon is behind him, and naked in the night he looks tall and marble and utterly unearthly. Louis watches him, chest heaving, and when he sees Harry looking back he just splays his legs wider.  
  
Harry falls back to his knees between Louis’ thighs, and up close Louis can see that what he took out of his jeans pocket was a small packet of lube, which he tears open and spreads over his first two fingers. Turning his head, he presses a kiss to the inside of Louis’ knee, and then starts to open him up, working his middle finger inside. Louis relaxes around him, dropping his head against the ground and closing his eyes as he focuses on the feeling. It feels good, this part, always does, half the feeling of Harry stroking him open and half the feeling of what’s to come, the anticipation of the way Harry’s going to fuck him.  
  
They’ve done this so many times that Harry starts finding his prostate almost immediately after he works a second finger in. The slow, steady rhythm he picks up has Louis’ fingers fisting in the fabric underneath him of their own accord, his face twisting to the side as his hips rock back against Harry’s hand. “You wanna know how you feel, Lou?” Harry says quietly, and normally all Louis wants is to hear Harry sing his praises, begs him to talk to him in that voice all sticky-slow, but it’s not what he wants tonight.  
  
“No,” he says, and he can feel Harry’s hand falter, but he keeps his eyes closed. “Just... can you just touch me?” he says softly, screwing his eyes shut even tighter. “I just want you to touch me.”  
  
Harry’s other hand falls to his waist, not stilling him, fingertips just pressing lightly into the soft flesh there. “Don’t touch yourself, then,” he says, his voice low, and then goes quiet. Louis shakes his head in agreement. As much as his cock needs attention, he doesn’t want to come too soon, and with the unrelenting way Harry is fucking him with his fingers he’s already too close to the edge.  
  
Stretching him further, Harry adds a third finger and another drizzle of lube, gliding back inside to pick up his rhythm again. Louis can barely stay ahead of it, no time to recover from one white-hot push against his prostate before the next one comes, but he still arches back against it, his body wanting as much as it can even while his brain starts to short-circuit. Harry is fucking merciless, apparently making up for not being able to talk by trying to fuck Louis to death. Louis throws an arm over his own face, muffling the weak moans he can hear coming from his mouth.  
  
“God, look at you,” Harry says, and Louis can’t see him but he can imagine his face, knows what that growling tone means. He can’t even be bothered to be annoyed that Harry couldn’t manage to be quiet for five minutes, can’t spare the brain cells. “You were made for this, you know that?” Harry continues, twisting his fingers in wickedly on the next thrust.  
  
“Oh God oh God  _oh God_ ,” Louis lets out in a rush, his legs shaking as he pushes back even harder on Harry’s fingers, desperate for the lightning it sends through him, for the way it has his cock heavy and full.  
  
“Could you come like this?” Harry asks, voice still harsh. Louis feels him lean forward, his hand leaving his waist, and gasps when Harry’s thumb presses hard into the bruise on his throat. His eyes fly open to meet Harry’s. “You could, couldn’t you? God, look at how much you fucking love it,” Harry says, his fingers still driving in, Louis’ eyes rolling back a little every time. “M’gonna make you come like this.”  
  
His pace doesn’t let up for a second, playing Louis’ body like an instrument. Maybe Louis should resent the loss of control, but his brain is still stuck on  _oh God oh God oh God_  from earlier and hasn’t yet found anything more worth thinking, aside from maybe  _Harry Harry Harry_. He didn’t want to come earlier, but he needs too, now, needs it like he needs to breathe. Harry slides his free hand down Louis’ chest, nails dragging, and only pauses to pinch one of his nipples hard enough to make Louis whine. Taking in his reaction, Harry does it again, and Louis can feel a familiar tension gathering. He chases it, grinding down hard on Harry, and  _God God yes yes Harry please Harry God_ —  
  
He spills all over his own stomach, the muscles there quivering uncontrollably. When he blinks back to himself, Harry is pressing kisses down his sternum, his fingers still inside him but unmoving. “Fucking amazing, amazing, Lou, God, I—” and then he reaches Louis’ stomach and licks at the mess there, staring up at Louis the entire time.  
  
Louis lifts a shaking arm and grabs blindly at Harry’s head, pulling him up his body for a wet kiss that’s more an excuse for Louis to catch his breath than anything else. Harry hasn’t pulled his fingers out, though, and as he kisses Louis he pushes them in deep, the renewed pressure wrenching a sob from Louis.  
  
Harry nuzzles against his ear, his other hand stroking lightly up and down Louis’ side. “Lou,” he murmurs, “God, Lou, incredible.” He kisses his ear, his shoulder, trailing kisses down his arm and sucking on his fingers. Already dizzy, Louis’ head starts spinning at Harry’s words and the soft way he’s touching him. This is a last, not a first, and Louis can’t deal with anything that feels like a promise tonight. “Do you think you could get hard again?” Harry asks, breaking his reverie. “Do you think you could come again?”  
  
“Hazza,” Louis croaks out, and it’s the first word he’s said in God knows how long. “I don’t know, I don’t—” he trails off, as Harry bites down on the soft pad of his thumb.  
  
“Can I try?” Harry says, and Louis feels like his skin is on fire but he still nods. The smile he gets from Harry is worth it.  
  
Scooting back on his knees, Harry withdraws his fingers just enough to apply more lube, and then slides them back in, encountering little resistance with Louis already as fucked-out as he is. Setting a slower rhythm than he had before, he ducks his head and licks carefully at Louis’ spent cock.  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Louis grinds out. It feels good but it hurts, too, like a layer of his skin has been burned away. When Harry looks up at him, though, he just slides his fingers into his hair and waits. Harry goes back to work, this time gently sucking the head of Louis’ cock into his mouth, his eyes falling closed and his face going peaceful as Louis strokes his hair clumsily.  
  
It’s so much, it’s too much, but it’s working. Louis can feel his cock slowly start to fill up again as Harry sucks more and more of it into his mouth, his lips wet with spit and the remains of Louis’ first orgasm. Soon enough Louis is thrusting shallowly into Harry’s mouth, torn between the wet heat around his cock and the long fingers inside him. He can’t look away from Harry, his face blissful as Louis weakly fucks up into him, seeming to have no thought at all for his own neglected cock which Louis hasn’t touched once all night.  
  
Finally Harry pulls off, his mouth wrecked, and the cool night air is a shock but a relief, too, a moment for Louis to feel like he might not fall completely apart. Taking his chance to form coherent thoughts, Louis manages to summon a complete sentence. “Fuck me,” he chokes out. “Now. Please, Harry, I need you to—”  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Harry says, his voice completely destroyed. “I can do that.”  
  
He climbs up over Louis, close enough that his curls fall almost to brush against Louis’ face. Bracing himself up on one hand, he uses the other to line himself up, Louis using what strength he has left to wrap his legs around his waist. For all his teasing, Harry doesn’t waste time here, sliding into Louis sure and deep. Louis groans at the sudden fullness, because Harry’s fingers are fucking miraculous, but his cock is  _big_ , and the weight of it inside him is an entirely different kind of overwhelming.  
  
Louis lets his head loll back, but then Harry’s fingers are on his face and lips, and Louis can’t help but suck them into his mouth, licking and biting at the skin there. He lifts his arms to wrap them around Harry, dragging his nails down his back, and Harry growls at the feel of it, fucking into Louis hard. Louis is glad to have something in his mouth then, to stifle the sounds he’d be making otherwise.  
  
He feels raw and red and open, and the slide of Harry’s cock feels amazing, but it feels like too much for one body, too. It’s like an itch that can only be scratched by tearing off his skin, like it hurts but he’ll kill anyone who tries to stop it. Tears spring to his eyes, not from pain or sadness but from how fucking overwhelming it is, like he needs to get rid of something to make room for how this feels. He knows the exact moment when Harry spots them, sees the way his mouth goes lax before he pulls his fingers from Louis’ mouth. He drops onto his forearms to kiss Louis with a groan, pushing his tongue into his mouth and moaning when Louis winds his fingers into his hair and pulls hard.  
  
Suddenly Harry breaks the kiss, leaning back. He slides one hand under Louis’ arse and another under his waist and lifts, sitting back and pulling Louis up into his lap like before. This time, though, he lays his legs out behind Louis and lies back, pulling Louis on top of him. It happens so fast that Louis is breathless, drunk on Harry’s strength and the fact that his cock is still deep inside him.  
  
Getting his bearings, he braces his hands on Harry’s shoulders, taking deep breaths. He’s always liked riding Harry, liked the control it gave him and the way he could watch every little thing he did play out on Harry’s face. Now, though, it feels more exposed, just Louis with the sky behind him and Harry watching him right back. He feels stripped bare by Harry’s vulnerability, the way he’s spread out on the grass, covered in sweat and waiting on Louis to make the next move.  
  
Louis is too wrecked to do what he normally would, too drained of energy to bounce on Harry’s cock until Harry’s fingers dig bruises into his thighs. It’s all he can do to stay upright, his legs boneless and his own cock throbbing. Instead, he rolls his hips experimentally. Harry’s cock doesn’t move in or out of him much, but it moves inside him, throwing up sparks behind his eyes. As for Harry, he swears and lets his head drop hard against the ground, so Louis doesn’t think he’s complaining.  
  
Holding himself up with his hands on Harry’s chest, Louis keeps grinding against him, grateful for the assistance when Harry’s hands come to his hips to help him find a rhythm. He feels absolutely ruined, fucking split open on Harry’s cock and hungry for it, and if he knew how to ask for more he would.  
  
He doesn’t have to, though, because Harry drops a hand to Louis’ cock and starts stroking it, fast and tight and perfect. “C’mon,” Harry breaths out, flushed all the way down his chest, “Want you to come again.” Louis can’t say no, rutting hard into his hand and rolling back onto his cock until finally, finally, he gets there, coming with a wordless shout and spilling all over Harry’s hand and stomach.  
  
Harry keeps him from falling over, sitting up to catch Louis and hold him in his lap. After two orgasms the feeling of Harry still inside him seems impossible, and Louis clings to Harry’s neck to try to stay afloat. Thankfully, Harry is right there with him, and after one, two, three thrusts upward that have Louis biting down on Harry’s shoulder, Harry shakes and comes soundlessly, the heat of his release leaving Louis even fuller than before.  
  
Gently, Harry tips them to the side, laying Louis out before he carefully starts pulling out. Louis winces a little at the drag against raw flesh, but he’s mostly too tired to care. When they’re finally separated, Louis rolls over and curls in on himself, not really interested in post-coital anything at all. Harry’s hand falls on his bicep, squeezing slightly, but Louis doesn’t move.  
  
They stay there a little while, silent in the dark, until Louis finally can’t take it, can’t take the feeling of Harry’s eyes on his back and the weight of his hand and the knowledge that he’ll be gone by the next time the sun sets. Maybe Harry wants to make believe, wants to pretend that tonight was anything other than what it was, but Louis isn’t going to play along to make him feel better about it. Louis doesn’t think he could if he wanted to.  
  
“So,” he says, still not turning around. “Your train. It leaves at two?”  
  
He hears a sharp intake of breath, and Harry’s hand lifts away. The next sound he hears is the rumple of clothing, the jangle of Harry’s belt buckle as he does up his jeans. Louis finally rolls over, just to grab his own clothes. They’re a little bit wet, dew starting to form on the pitch, but he really doesn’t care. He stands up, wobbling a little, and slides on his glasses. Harry is dressed already when he looks up at him, face unreadable in the dark, and when he sees Louis is ready he starts walking back towards the carpark.  
  
They walk back together without speaking, not quite side-by-side, passing in and out of the puddles of light cast by the streetlamps. Finally, they reach Harry’s car, and Louis speaks before he knows he’s made the decision.  
  
“Do you want a ride tomorrow?” he asks. “To the station, I mean.”  
  
Harry stares at him, driver’s side door open, and then nods. “Sure.”  
  
Louis nods back. “Okay. I’ll pick you up at half one, then.” Harry nods again and slides into his car without a word, slamming the door and starting the engine.  
  
Listening to the sound of Harry drive away, Louis walks over to his own car and unlocks it clumsily. He doesn’t bother opening the driver’s side. Instead, he opens the back and drags the spare blanket up off the floorboards. He curls up in the back seat and waits for sleep to take him, and he doesn’t think about anything at all.

✖

  
  
They don’t speak during the drive to the train station.  
  
Every time Louis looks in the rearview, he catches a glimpse of Harry’s duffle bag in the backseat.  
  
The silence is suffocating. He thinks about turning on the radio, but can’t bear the idea of reaching toward the other side of the car. Harry’s personal space seems to have expanded to fill everything but the driver’s seat, and Louis can’t bring himself to enter it. Even breathing seems a violation. He’s an arsehole. Jesus. He’s such an arsehole. Harry’s an arsehole, too. Everyone is an arsehole. The world is a giant arsehole.  
  
They stop at a red light. Louis looks down at his hand on the gear shift, looks to the left at Harry’s empty hands. The impulse is strong, but then the light is green and Louis’ hands are busy again.  
  
Louis’ taking the long way, but Harry hasn’t said anything. Maybe he still doesn’t know the town well enough to notice.  
  
Keeping his eyes fixed on the road, Louis doesn’t think he’s ever driven so safely in his life. As long as he just moves from one immediate task to another—speed up, turn on the turn signal, brake gently, take the turn—he won’t think about where it is they’re going. He half expects the rules of the road to have changed today, because there’s no way things can be normal when this is happening, when Louis’ life is collapsing to a singular point in time that’s about ten minutes away. But everything works like it always has, stoplights switching from red to green like clockwork and traffic flowing steadily even while there’s an eighty-vehicle pile-up in Louis’ head.  
  
Maybe it’s like this all the time, he thinks idly. He wonders how many people he walks by every day who are having the worst day of their lives. He can’t figure out if it’s depressing or reassuring, that a person’s greatest despair barely makes a ripple in the world. That what feels like the apocalypse doesn’t really matter to anybody outside this car.  
  
One more right turn, and then he can’t pretend that all these small actions didn’t add up to anything, because they’re at the station. Louis doesn’t feel like he’s making conscious decisions to move his hands, to press down on the pedals, but his car still glides into the carpark without even a squeak of the brakes.  
  
He parks the car, and Harry is opening the door before Louis can put the parking brake on. Louis feels his legs moving before he’s aware of deciding to move them, feels himself get out too. He comes around to the other side of the car as Harry reaches in the back and pulls out his bag.  
  
Harry closes the door, and Louis puts his hands in his pockets.  
  
“Well,” Louis says. “Good luck, I suppose, not that you’ll need it.” He makes himself meet Harry’s eyes. If he can’t manage to say anything of use, he can at least do that.  
  
The late-afternoon sun has Harry’s eyes glowing as they run frantically over Louis’ face.  
  
Harry reaches out and grabs hold of Louis shirtfront, pulling him in close and trapping himself between Louis and the car, and kisses him hard.  
  
Louis is off-balance but doesn’t care, freeing his hands from his pockets and bracing himself against the car, one arm on either side of Harry. He hears the thump of the duffle hitting the ground, feels Harry’s arm curl around his waist to pull him that much closer. His hands on the hot roof of the car, Louis kisses Harry like a drowning man.  
  
Harry smells like grass and Louis’ fabric softener. He tastes like snow.  
  
Harry pulls away abruptly, still fenced in by Louis’ arms. He bends at the knees to grab his bag, stands, and presses a rough kiss to Louis’ cheek. Then he ducks under Louis’ right arm and walks toward the station, leaving Louis staring at his own reflection in the car’s window.  
  
Louis turns and watches him go, tries futilely in the last moments to memorize Harry’s walk, the line of his shoulders, the curve of his waist. There’s not enough time. There would never have been enough time.  
  
And then he’s out of sight, slipping out of view as easily as any other body. As if he were anyone else.  
  
 _This is when I would go after him_ , Louis thinks, and turns to unlock the car with shaking hands.

✖

  
  
Louis goes back to his flat, locks the door, shuts the balcony, pulls down the blinds, and doesn’t talk to anyone for a week.

 

 

 

**Chapter 18,**

It’s finally here. The day. The day of days.

 

Liam and Zayn are going to sleep together tonight.

 

Zayn had insisted on trying to take things slow, because Liam was new to the whole sex with blokes thing, and he didn’t want to rush him, and he wanted to be a supportive boyfriend—boyfriend!!!!—and all of that still stands, but they’ve been waiting forever and the day is finally here.

 

He thinks Liam might be more eager than he is, honestly. It’s not like they haven’t been fooling around, figuring each other out, and Liam’s always been the one to want to go further. He’s been telling Zayn he was ready for weeks now, but Zayn wanted to wait until he could do it right, give it the time they deserved. The time that Liam deserved. Plus, well, the idea of Liam being desperate for him is more than a little hot.

 

Zayn has unbelievable willpower when it comes to making things perfect for Liam, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to wait anymore. This is the day. They decided on it last week, and Zayn felt a bit silly scheduling sex, but he has to admit it’s the right time. It’s a Friday, they both have the whole weekend free, and Zayn even skived off a little bit early so he could have enough time to fix up his flat before Liam came over. He just knows it’s going to be flawless.

 

So naturally, Zayn is half falling off a step ladder and attempting to pry his screaming smoke detector off the wall with a screwdriver when Liam walks in the door. Liam freezes in the doorway, taking in the scene. There’s half a bag of rose petals leading towards Zayn’s room, but the other half is still inside the bag, which is melted and smoking from where a strategically-placed scented candle fell on it. Burnt rose petals and plastic do not smell particularly good. The floor is wet from where Zayn panicked and put out the fire not with a glass of water or a fire extinguisher, but the closest liquid he had on hand: the bottle of red wine he’d just uncorked. There is faintly sickly-sweet smoke everywhere.

 

“You know...” Liam says, hovering by the door, mouth twitching, “you don’t have to do all this anymore.”

 

“I swear to God, this wasn’t on purpose,” Zayn tells him, resuming his work on the smoke detector. “I was, I was nervous, about the whole thing, and I was just trying to, to set the mood.” He manages to get the cover off at last and pops the batteries out, and sweet silence fills the room. Liam is biting back a smile. “There, there were rose petals, and then I—candles, and I knocked one over, and then everything was on fire—”

 

“Are you all right?” Liam asks, cutting him off.

 

Zayn exhales, stepping down off the ladder. “I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”

 

“No, you’re not,” Liam says.

 

“Yes, I am,” Zayn says. He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted everything to be perfect.”

 

Zayn will never understand what it is about the daft things he says sometimes that makes Liam light up like the sun, like he does then. He guesses that’s how he knows this whole thing isn’t just a fluke, because they seem to be mutually amazed by each other and mutually bewildered by this fact, which he thinks probably means they’re meant for each other.

 

Whatever it is, Liam’s face dissolves into a fond smile and he leaves his keys on the counter and crosses the room to where Zayn is standing.

 

“It is perfect,” Liam says, pulling Zayn in by the waist. “All I need is you.”

 

From anyone else it would sound like a line, but from Liam it’s all earnest, and God, that never gets old.

 

“You’re just saying that to get into my pants,” Zayn says. He reaches up and wraps his arms around Liam’s neck, smiling.

 

“No,” Liam says, “but now that you mention it...” He dips his head and kisses Zayn with a surprising amount of heat, backing him up against the kitchen counter. Zayn can’t help but go along with it, sighing at the slide of Liam’s tongue against him, but forces himself to break free for a moment.

 

“Good. Excellent plan. Great,” he says, a little out of breath. “Just, let me get this cleaned up, and then, yes. That. Absolutely.”

 

Liam makes a little disappointed noise that has Zayn’s toes curling inside his shoes. “We can clean it up later,” he says, sliding a hand up under Zayn’s t-shirt. “Hell, I’ll clean it up later on my own.”

 

Zayn slides his hands down off Liam’s shoulders, meaning to push him away but getting distracted by the way his broad chest feels under his hands. “It’ll—it’ll stain the floorboards,” he says absently, rubbing his thumb in circles over Liam’s nipple through the cotton of his shirt.

 

Liam draws in a sharp breath and leans in to press a kiss below Zayn’s ear. “I’ll tear up the floorboards and put in new ones, Zayn, I swear to God. Just take me to bed, I’ve been thinking about it all week.” Zayn can’t help the shudder that runs through him, and yeah, fuck the floorboards.

 

He pushes blindly at Liam’s chest and grabs his hand, pulling him through his flat. He’s pretty sure they track wine all over his living room carpet, but that doesn’t seem to matter much when he has a laughing Liam Payne grabbing him around the waist and lifting him to carry him through the door into this bedroom.

 

Liam tosses him gently onto the bed and crawls on top of him before he’s stopped bouncing, pressing giggling kisses along his jaw. “‘m in love with you,” he mumbles happily against Zayn’s neck. “Have I mentioned that?” He has, of course. They’ve said it dozens of times by now, because neither of them are the type to feel anything halfway. They barely made it three weeks in before they were saying it a thousand times a day like a couple of idiot teenagers, but Zayn still feels something squeeze around his lungs, stealing his breath when Liam says it. He wonders if this will ever feel quite real.

 

“Always bears repeating,” he grins into Liam’s hair before pulling him up and kissing him properly. “I’m in love with you, too,” he breaths between kisses, barely pulling away enough to get the words out. “I’m in love with you.”

 

And maybe it’s not perfect, or exactly like Zayn planned it. Maybe there are no rose petals and candlelight and maybe the flat smells like death, and Liam gets his shirt caught on one of Zayn’s earrings and Zayn’s jeans get tangled up around his ankles when he tries to shimmy out of them, and neither of them seem to know how to function for a few seconds once they’re both undressed. It’s okay. If he’s learned anything from this whole experience with Liam, it’s that things rarely work out the way he plans, and a lot of the time it’s even better the clumsy, reckless way.

 

He takes his time with Liam, laying him flat on his back and going down on him for ages. Some things don’t stop just because they’re together now, and Zayn is still always going to want to kiss every inch of him, is always going to treat it like an unbelievable privilege that he gets to do so. Besides, he loves taking Liam apart like this. He loves dragging it out and making him beg, because Liam is Liam, and there’s nothing like the sound of that sweet mouth cursing at the ceiling and the feeling of looking up his body to see those gentle hands white-knuckled in the sheets.

 

As always, Liam is full of surprises, and as soon as he’s finished he rolls them over and returns the favor. The most unexpected thing about sex with Liam is how hungry he is for it, considering this is unfamiliar territory for him. Now that Liam knows he has permission, he doesn’t shy away from anything anymore, not even the stubble on Zayn’s jaw when he kisses him there. His hands are still careful, but they aren’t unsure. He may not quite know what he’s doing when he’s sucking Zayn off, but he’s not afraid of it, and when he pulls off and tells him, “This is my favorite thing to do,” in a hoarse voice before blushing and swallowing him down again, Zayn fucking believes it.

 

It’s been a while since Zayn was with somebody so inexperienced, but he finds that he likes it. Maybe it’s just because it’s Liam, but it’s exciting to get to introduce someone to this, to show him exactly what’s so good about it. Zayn’s had a lot of sex in his life, but he can’t remember the last time he was so excited about it. He guesses Liam’s enthusiasm is infectious. He leads Liam through the prep with a hand on his wrist, shuddering out instructions through the feeling of Liam opening him up, and he watches Liam’s expression of wonder when he sees what it’s doing to him. It’s amazing, and it’s his, and he’s the first one who gets to show Liam how this feels, and he wants to be the last one too.

 

He rides Liam with his hands braced on his shoulders, his necklaces swinging between them as he moves, and Liam holds onto his hips and tells him he loves him about a million times, even as he drags his nails down Zayn’s back and makes him shiver. Zayn tries to keep it slow, because he remembers his first time and he knows Liam isn’t going to last long, but it’s too hard to look down at the man underneath him and think about how long he’s wanted this and not have to have it all at once. They’ll have other chances to make it last. They have all the time in the world.

 

He leans in close and kisses Liam hard, and Liam uses the moment to roll them over and take Zayn in hand. That’s what does it, the change of angle, Liam’s body pinning him down like Zayn always knew it could. Zayn wraps his arms around Liam’s neck and kisses him until they both come, and afterwards too.

 

The first round is quick, but the next lasts much longer, and Zayn can barely breathe by the time he’s coming back down again. Always the gentleman, Liam cleans them both up carefully, and then they just lie together for a while, Liam’s head on Zayn’s chest and Zayn’s hand carding through Liam’s hair. Zayn’s tired, exhausted like he always is after sex, but he doesn’t want to fall asleep just yet. Not when this moment feels so crystalline, so perfect and so breakable. The two of them are going to sleep together plenty more times—Zayn plans on ensuring it—but this is the only time it’ll be the first time, and Zayn isn’t anywhere near tired enough to want to give up the sleepy, satisfied look in Liam’s eyes.

 

“You good?” he murmurs, lifting Liam’s hand to his mouth and pressing his lips to his knuckles. He thinks Liam would have told him if he weren’t, but this is still, you know, a pretty major event, and he’s going to check in anyway.

 

“I’m great,” Liam says, propping his chin up on Zayn’s chest. “Still love you, by the way,” he says with a little grin.

 

“Love you too,” Zayn replies, wondering if Liam can feel the way his sluggish heart still picks up at that even though it must be the twentieth time he’s heard it tonight. He can tell Liam gets a thrill out of it, out of being able to speak so freely when they’d both kept quiet so long. “I’m so glad—” he lets out in a rush, not quite sure where he’s going, “I’m so glad we can tell each other things. Please don’t ever think you can’t tell me things or talk to me. Even if it’s not something I’m going to like.”

 

Liam’s mouth purses a little, and if Zayn weren’t melted into the bed he’d kiss it. “Of course. And same to you, obviously.” Worry starts to wash over his face. “Is there something you need to talk to me about?”

 

“No, no,” Zayn says, reaching his hand down to scratch between Liam’s shoulder blades and reassure him. “We’re good, love, I promise.” Mollified, Liam drops his head back down and nuzzles his nose against Zayn’s sternum. “It’s just—” he doesn’t know quite how to express himself, but he figures Liam will know what he means. He heaves a sigh that lifts Liam’s head up and down as his ribcage expands. “Louis and Harry.”

 

Liam hums knowingly. “We aren’t Louis and Harry,” he mumbles against Zayn’s skin. “If you ever try to run off to London I’ll buy a tent and camp out on the pavement outside your fancy new flat. I promise.”

 

Zayn grins down at the man he loves. “Likewise.” There’s still something itching at him, though, so he presses one more time. “But seriously, no matter what’s going on—in our lives or in your head—I’d always rather have you talk to me than not, yeah?”

 

Tightening the arm he has around Zayn’s waist, Liam nods. “I will. You’re really upset about the two of them, aren’t you?” His voice is getting slower and thicker with sleep, and Zayn commends him for at least trying to stay awake. He’s sliding that direction himself, eyelids heavier and heavier every time he blinks.

 

“It’s just hard to see them fall apart,” Zayn says. “Now that I know what they’re losing.” The last thing he registers before drifting off is the feeling of Liam smiling against his chest.

 

L

 

 

At first, the only emotion Louis can really handle is anger.

 

That’s what he latches on to. Anger doesn’t make him weaker, doesn’t sit on his chest at night and make him want to look up train tickets to London. He can trust anger. It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t try to fool him into thinking he and Harry could have been anything more than what they were. He and anger have come to an uneasy truce over the years, and he needs that. Louis knows where he stands with anger, and he hasn’t felt solid ground under his feet in what feels like months.

 

So he doesn’t change the sheets and he doesn’t scrub the smell of Harry out of his flat. He doesn’t take the photo Harry gave him for his birthday down from his bedroom wall. Changing those parts of his life would be admitting the impact Harry had on them meant something, and it didn’t, and he has to remember that. He needs to be able to look at that picture and not feel a thing. That’s when he’ll know he’s okay again.

 

He calls Harry names in his head, comes up with reasons to hate everything he ever did, lets all the sweet things turn sour in his mouth. Fucking Harry, with his easy life and never anything to lose, with his pretentious taste in music and his even more pretentious friends, with his skill for getting people to love him without even trying when Louis feels like he can’t pull that off even when he works his arse off for it. Fucking, fucking Harry.

 

He's got two weeks left of the last term, and he makes it through finals and marking on instinct. He knows he’s phoning it in, and he feels like focusing on work might be a good distraction, but he just can’t seem to concentrate on anything properly and mostly he just wants it to be over.

 

The only worthwhile thing he manages out of all of it is printing out and distributing flyers for a summer acting workshop. It’s an idea that comes to him in a moment of desperation, looking at the next six wide open weeks on his calendar with nothing to keep him occupied. Working with kids is the only thing that always makes sense, so he comes up with the idea to offer one-on-one acting classes over the summer holidays. It’s something, at least.

 

The worst part is Zayn and Liam. He’s so happy for Zayn, really, he is, and he genuinely likes Liam, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to watching people be disgustingly in love right in front of him all the time. The fact of the matter is, though, that for all the menagerie of friends and acquaintances he’s accumulated in Manchester, the two of them and Niall are the only ones he ever really wants to spend his time with, so he puts up with it. It’s not like it matters, anyway. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything to him.

 

He tells them he wants to go out for drinks, and they all agree, mostly because they all seem to be waiting for him to snap at any moment. He drags them out with him three times in one week, hell-bent on enjoying himself. He laughs as loudly as he remembers how and downs drinks and flirts recklessly, but it never works and he always ends up closing out his tab and going home alone, walking aimlessly around his flat like he’ll remember something for him to do if he just keeps moving long enough. He never has anything to do. Sometimes he sits on top of his bed and stares at the wall, feeling himself sober up. He doesn’t think this is how he used to have fun.

 

Louis Tomlinson isn’t a quitter, though, so two nights later he rounds them all up again and drags them out to the nearest bar with a drink special on a Tuesday. He doesn’t stay still the entire taxi ride over, animated and twitchy and ignoring the worried looks Liam keeps shooting him. As if Liam even knows him well enough to know what’s worrying or not. Half of what Louis does on a normal day would probably worry Liam.

 

The night’s a bust, just like all the rest of them. Louis hates everyone in the bar on sight, which probably isn’t fair, but fuck fair. He alternates between glaring at everyone who has the gall to look at him and resenting everyone who passes him by. He’s not sure what he wants, but it’s not here. Niall ends up leaving with a pretty girl with even prettier tattoos halfway through the night, and Louis spends the next two hours getting systematically drunk on mojitos and watching Liam and Zayn flirt with each two barstools over. He wishes his drink were big enough to drown in.

 

In the taxi on the way home, he pretends to fall asleep against the window so nobody asks him about how he’s feeling or if he’s okay or does he want to talk about anything. Not that Liam and Zayn seem to remember he’s there anyway, but it feels better to just disengage completely.

 

Next to him, Zayn is cozied up to Liam, slurring things to each other in that infuriating secret mumbly language that only couples understand.

 

“You know, you are allowed to kiss me in public,” Zayn teases, and wow, Louis really, really does not want to have to sit through this conversation.

 

“Sorry,” Liam says. He sounds so incredibly sheepish that Louis wants to fling himself out the window. “It’s just, I dunno, I’m just still figuring out what I’m doing? Like, I know how to kiss you when we’re alone, but when we’re out I don’t know when that’s okay, and then I get all caught up in my head thinking I’m bad at all the boyfriend-y parts of being your boyfriend and I don’t do anything at all. It’s my fault. I’m always sort of afraid you’re going to notice I’m kind of awkward and weird and not that great at this and then you won’t want to be with me anymore.”

 

Louis hears Zayn laugh a little. “Can I tell you something? I’m always afraid of the same thing.”

 

“Really?” Liam says, all wide-eyed shock and innocence. Jesus Christ.

 

“Have you met me?” Zayn says. “Listen, I told you, there’s nothing you can do that’s gonna scare me off, okay? And you’re not a bad boyfriend. You never have to be afraid of that.”

 

“Okay,” Liam says after a moment.

 

“And I want you to kiss me whenever you want to,” Zayn tells him, so quietly that Louis feels like he’s intruding on the moment just by being alive.

 

“What if I kind of want to kiss you all the time?” Liam says. Louis wants to throw up on both of them.

 

Zayn laughs again. “I can definitely live with that.”

 

And now there’s the sound of clothes rustling, and then the soft smack of lips, and fucking hell, they’re having a right fucking snog in the backseat of the taxi while Louis just sits there and endures it, and the worst part of all is that it reminds him of that night in the taxi with Harry and how Harry had held him after they’d fucked the headboard into the wall and kissed him behind the ear and everything is terrible and he is so, so lonely.

 

He misses Harry. He hates Harry and everything that happened because of him and God, he misses Harry.

 

Admitting that to himself feels like ripping the bottom out of his stomach and letting it all drop, but it’s true, and he can’t keep denying it. Being around Liam and Zayn makes him miserable not because he finds romance so repulsive but because looking at them is like seeing a fucking ghost, except he’s the one that’s dead. It feels like the universe is punishing him, holding Liam and Zayn up and saying look at all these wonderful things you weren’t good enough to have.

 

Breaking through his thoughts, Louis hears Zayn whisper, “I love you.” He hears the universe whisper back, look at what you were too fucked up to deserve.

 

When the taxi reaches his street, he pretends to wake up and ducks out with a mumbled goodbye, leaving the lovebirds to make their way home together. He climbs the stairs to his flat, walks straight to the bathroom, and spends an hour sitting on the floor of his shower, letting the hot water cloud the glass with steam.

 

He reaches for that familiar anger, and finds nothing there. Even that has abandoned him now.

 

✖

 

 

Louis’ step-dad left when he was somewhere between seventeen and eighteen.

 

He should remember it more specifically, he thinks. Down to a date. It seems like the kind of event that should be seared into his mental calendar, a date that he dreads when it rolls around every year, but the thing was, he didn’t leave all at once. It was messier than that, a more gradual thing. It took him ages to finish moving all of his things, and then the calls started getting less frequent, and he was sort of just...not around. Not totally gone, because how can someone like that ever really be gone? But he wasn’t there anymore.

 

With Harry, it’s different. He knows exactly where Harry is and why. He knows exactly the station where he dropped him off, exactly the look on his face when he knew it was the last time he would ever see him. It’s like a death, honestly, if he really looks it in the eyes. It’s like a loss, like trying to lay somebody to rest and find a way to live in all the spaces they’ll never touch again. It’s a shock, and it shouldn’t be because Louis knew it was coming, but he still feels numb with it as he sits alone in his bed.

 

He doesn’t bother lying to himself anymore. He wasn’t very good at it, anyway. There’s no more point in pretending he doesn’t care. That fact can’t hurt him any more than it already has, and besides, once you’ve accepted the sadness, you can’t really undo it.

 

Louis remembers the little pamphlets in the waiting room at the medical center back when he was in uni, one of them outlining the stages of grief. He’d read through most of those pamphlets at some point or another. He reckons this is the depression part. At least that’s not uncharted territory.

 

He spends weeks squirreling sadness away inside his flat, wrapping it around him like a blanket, because it hurts like hell but at least it’s honest. Anger drove him wild, but sadness lets him be. For a while he doesn’t get out of bed except to feed Duchess or get food for himself, which he always ends up bringing back to his bedroom. The dishes accumulate, empty glasses and bottles on every surface, and there’s a layer of laundry on the floor so thick he can hardly see the ugly carpet anymore. It’s a fucking mess and he hates living in it, but he doesn’t have the energy to change anything and as much as he doesn’t want to be there, he really doesn’t want to be anywhere else. Eventually he gives up and just starts wearing the same pair of oversized joggers every day, because it’s not like anyone’s going to see him anyway.

 

He knows he’s avoiding his friends. The problem is, the more days that go by without him talking to anyone, the more he feels like calling any of them would only draw attention to the fact that he hasn’t been around, and he’s too ashamed to admit to any of them that he hasn’t left his room in weeks. He can’t stand the looks they’d give them, how concerned they would be, how they’d want him to talk about how he’s feeling. He’d be nothing but a burden at best and a charity case at worst. He can’t face that.

 

So he lets his phone go dead and he doesn’t recharge it. He thinks about it, gets as close as almost plugging it into the wall, but the gripping anxiety of having to answer anyone’s questions about anything shuts him down before he can go through with it. He feels like an idiot every time. It’s just a phone. It’s just a phone. Maybe he’s just defective.

 

It’s an awful, cyclical, paralyzing sadness, and he doesn’t know how to drag himself out of it.

 

He tries reading, tries watching television, tries skimming through scripts to pick out some selections for the summer acting workshop he’s promised to do and is going to have to start preparing for soon, somehow—none of it works. Nothing holds his interest anymore. Well, nothing except thoughts of Harry, of bright city lights in his hair and what kind of mad adventures he’s probably getting up to on his own. He imagines Harry found his feet quickly, that he’s happier now than he ever was when he had Louis like a weight around his neck all the time. He pictures Harry swaying on the tube, or singing something under his breath as he walks home to his flat at night, or in Hyde Park, running his fingers through the grass. He can’t decide if the thought of Harry being okay without him hurts more or less now.

 

If nothing else, he at least hopes that Harry thinks of him, and that he doesn’t hate him completely.

 

✖

 

 

He loses track of the days, loses track of day and night, so he’s not even sure what time it is when he hears someone pounding on the door of his flat.

 

He sits frozen in his bed as whoever’s on the other side of the door waits for a response. He wonders if it’s Zayn like it was last time, here to try to coax him into another conversation he doesn’t want to have, and wonders if he can convince him he’s asleep if he just waits long enough. The pounding starts up again.

 

“Louis!” the person at the door shouts, and it’s Niall’s voice. “It’s me! Open up, man!”

 

Louis is wearing the same smelly pair of joggers he’s had on for days and a shirt that has a jam stain on the front, and his flat is an absolute disaster. There’s no way anybody is going to be allowed to see this. However, there is also no way Niall is going to leave without some kind of answer, so Louis drags his pitiful arse out of bed.

 

“I’m fine, Niall,” Louis says, leaning against the door. “Go home. Don’t worry about me.”

 

“Bullshit,” Niall says. “Open the door, Lou.”

 

God, he’s even got Niall worried about him. Niall never worries about anything, and Louis’ got him breaking down his door at—he glances at the clock on the oven—eight o’clock at night to check on him. He feels like such a twat.

 

“It’s okay,” Louis tells him. “I’m not—”

 

“Will you shut up and open the door already?” Niall interrupts. “You really think I’m gonna judge?”

 

Louis clenches his teeth, shoving both hands into his hair. It’s true, Niall is probably the friend of his least likely to look at his current state like it’s some kind of desperate cry for help. He’s also the most likely to call in serious reinforcements if Louis doesn’t let him in. Louis’ mum loves Niall. There doesn’t seem to be much of a choice here.

 

“Fine,” Louis says, and unlocks the door. Niall storms in and, true to his word, says nothing about the state of Louis’ flat or Louis himself. He just pulls Louis into a bear hug and claps him on the back.

  
“Have you been eating?” he says, not letting go. Louis nods, and it’s mostly true. He hasn’t exactly been making himself three square meals a day, but he’s been snacking enough that he’s probably fine. “Drinking?” He shakes his head. At least that isn’t a path he’s gone down just yet. “Good,” Niall says, giving him a squeeze before holding Louis out at arm’s length. “Get in the shower, then. We’re going out.”  
  
“Niall—” Louis starts, exasperated.  
  
“Shut up, Lou. We’re going out. It’s gonna be great. Get in the shower,” Niall says again, and this time he starts pushing Louis towards the bathroom. Louis resists at first, and then Niall gets a look on his face like he might forcibly bathe Louis himself if he doesn’t get moving, and Louis would rather not see that come to pass.  
  
“I’ve already tried that, Niall,” Louis protests, but walks into the bathroom anyway. Niall pushes in behind him and turns on the shower, and the sound of the knobs on the wall squeaking is something Louis hasn’t heard in a truly embarrassing amount of days. “Going out doesn’t work.”  
  
“Trust me, mate, you haven’t tried this yet. Not what I’ve got planned,” Niall says with a grin. He turns around, his back facing Louis, but doesn’t leave the room. “Get in the shower.”  
  
“Are you serious?” Louis asks, staring at Niall’s back. When he gets no response, he resignedly starts to strip, finally stepping into the the shower when he’s naked. He pulls the shower curtain around and shouts, “Happy?”  
  
“Very!” Niall chirps. “You stay in there and get less smelling like death, and I’ll find you something to wear.” Louis feels a twinge of panic and shame at the thought of Niall rummaging through his filthy room, but tries to just focus on shampooing his hair since he knows the matter is beyond his control at this point. Niall turned the water on a little too hot, but it’s a nice constant sting. It keeps him from thinking of reasons why he should kick Niall out and crawl back into bed.  
  
When he’s shampooed and soaped and practically squeaking, thank you very much, he turns the water off and makes his way back into the living room with a towel around his waist. Niall is on the couch, and when he sees Louis he grins and throws a pile of clothes at him, which Louis barely manages to catch without dropping his towel.  
  
“Put those on and dry your hair,” Niall says. “And then we are getting the hell out of here.”  
  
Louis doesn’t even bother protesting this time, just rolls his eyes and head back into the bathroom. He’d rather not go into his bedroom right now, would rather not have to imagine what Niall thought when he went inside. He pulls on the white t-shirt and jeans Niall picked out, but not before snorting at the tiny briefs Niall apparently thought were an appropriate underwear selection.  
  
He plugs in his hairdryer and makes a go of it, getting all the way to “slightly damp” before giving up. It’ll dry straight and soft by the time they get wherever it is Niall thinks they’re going. He can’t be fucked to actually style it when he’s only going out under extreme duress.  
  
When he walks back out, Niall throws his arms up into the air and whoops. “Wahey! You’re gorgeous!” he says. “I’ve already got your coat. Get your wallet and let’s roll!”  
  
Louis eventually finds his wallet wedged in his sofa cushions, and then they’re on their way, Niall driving them into a corner of the city Louis hasn’t visited in at least a year. He feels a stress migraine coming on.  
  
“Where exactly are we going?” Louis asks from the passenger seat, leaning his forehead against the glass and watching the incoming headlights slide by.  
  
“We’re going to a gig,” Niall says gleefully, and Louis turns to see him smile knowingly as he takes a left turn.  
  
“A gig for who?”  
  
“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”  
  
Louis doesn’t want to be surprised. Louis doesn’t want to be surprised ever again for the rest of his life. Louis wants to turn this car around and crawl back into bed where he never has to think about anything. He never should have agreed to this. Matter of fact, he never really agreed to anything, just sort of got carried along by the oncoming tide of Niall’s enthusiasm.  
  
Niall pulls up outside some building that has flashing lights and a queue that goes on for ages. Louis’ pretty sure he’s parked illegally, but Niall doesn’t seem to care, hopping out happily and coming around to open Louis’ door for him. “Come on, Tommo!” he says cheerfully. “Party don’t start ‘til we walk in!”  
  
With a groan, Louis drags himself out of the car. “You are a menace,” he says, and Niall just smiles wider. “We’re going to be queuing for hours,” Louis whines, wondering if he can be annoying enough that Niall will just give up and take him back home.  
  
“Nah,” Niall says, and grabs Louis’ hand to drag them toward the front of the queue. Louis is fully prepared to get thrown onto the pavement by the bouncer, but when he sees them he just grins and lets them through, ignoring the complaints of the people in the queue.  
  
“About time you got here!” he yells over the din, clapping Niall on the shoulder. Niall just tips his hat at him and leads Louis through, off the street and into the dark interior of the club.  
  
“How the fuck do you always pull that off?” Louis shouts, and Niall just shrugs mysteriously. He pulls Louis over away from the dancefloor and towards the bar.  
  
“Stay here,” he says, shoving Louis onto a barstool. “Get a drink, tell them it’s on my tab, they’ll know who I am.”  
  
“Where are you going?” Louis says, starting to panic as Niall starts walking away from the bar. The last thing he needs is to be alone in a crowd right now.  
  
“I’ll be back!” Niall shouts over his shoulder. “Just stay there!” And then he’s gone.  
  
Great. He’s stuck at a club that he has no desire whatsoever to be at, and he’s just been abandoned by his only friend in the building, probably to go chat up the birds or something. Just great. Somehow his life has gotten even more pathetic.  
  
He catches the bartender’s eye and orders a beer. For a moment he contemplates asking her to put it on Niall’s supposed tab, but he’s pretty sure Niall is just overestimating how infamous he is. There’s no way that he and the lads have ever been to this place before, and if they’ve never been then there’s no chance Niall has been here enough times to have a regular tab.  
  
Taking a sip of his lager, he pays the bartender. “Question,” he says, counting out his bills. “Who exactly is playing here tonight?” He tips generously. If he’s going to deal with this night he’s going to need to be on good terms with the woman in charge of the booze.  
  
Smiling, the bartender takes his money. “You’re in for a good show, love. The Craic is playing tonight.”  
  
Louis feels a ping of familiarity at the name, but can’t place it. “Who’s that? I’ve heard the name before.”  
  
“Bit of a local legend, he is. Pretty much just plays locally. Completely mental, but a brilliant DJ. He’s got a decent following in the city, mostly among the kids,” she says, nodding over at a few tables full of students.  
  
That’s right. Louis had heard some of his kids mention this guy, talking in poorly-hushed whispers about trying to sneak into 18+ clubs to see him. When he looks at the crowd rapidly filling up the floor, bobbing along to the half-decent opening act, he sees that the first few rows seem to be primarily composed of people who barely look old enough to be there, a few of them wearing homemade t-shirts with The Craic’s name on them in bold letters. He’s not sure why Niall thinks this show is going to cheer him up, exactly, but then again he’s not sure of why Niall does about half of the things he does. He’ll ask him when he gets back.  
  
Except Niall doesn’t come back. It’s been twenty minutes and Louis is still alone at the bar, feeling like a complete tit while the opening act clears out and the headliner gets ready to come on. Some night out this is. He’s just flagging the bartender down to order another beer when the lights go down and the crowd goes absolutely mad, making his head pound with the volume of their cheering. Looks like he’s going to have to sit through this alone. He is going to absolutely murder Niall, and then he is going to steal his car and drive home and never speak to anybody but Duchess ever again.  
  
The headliner, whoever the hell they are, jumps out from backstage, and the shouts pitch up even higher, hands and drinks going up in the air all over the room. The DJ’s got on a backwards snapback and a loose tank and sunglasses, and Louis nearly drops his beer when he puts it all together.  
  
“ _How the fuck are ya?_ ” Niall shouts into the microphone. The crowd screams back.  
  
Niall. Niall is The Craic.  
  
Louis stares, mouth hanging open, as Niall takes his place behind the turntables and puts his headphones on, waving his arms to get the crowd even more worked up. Louis does not know how to process this.  
  
Then the music starts and things go absolutely mental.  
  
The floor explodes with dancing, pulsing under the lights, and Louis is one of the few people left at the bar as patrons abandon their drinks to go join the crush. Niall is in control of it all, smile wide on his face as he switches from record to record. Louis’ seen him do this before, has had him DJ at countless parties, but he’s never seen him with a couple hundred people going mad for him. They’re clearly there for  _him_ , too, recognizing tracks he plays and cheering for their favorites. He deserves the cheers. He’s  _good._  
  
Louis knew that Niall had a knack for making insane mashups and remixes, but he’s never heard Niall play anything like this. It’s a mess of samples of rap songs and top 40 and things Louis has never heard before all laid over a pounding bassline, and then weaved into it all are sounds that Louis can tell are recordings of Niall himself, guitar riffs and vocals looped and worked into the beat. It sounds fucking  _great_ , and the crowd is jumping and sweaty and waving their arms around, and Niall is just as animated behind the tables. There’s even a light show, one that Louis imagines Niall probably created himself. It’s amazing.  
  
Louis can’t quite bring himself to get up and throw himself into the crowd since he isn’t up for being touched by that many strangers tonight, but he can’t help dancing along in his seat a little, bopping his head and swaying to the beats. It looks like fun out there, like the kind of scene he enjoyed once. Next time he’ll go and dance, he finds himself thinking, and oh, that’s unexpected. That’s a sort of thought he hasn’t had in a while.  
  
Niall’s set lasts an hour, and then he’s thanking the crowd for a “great fucking night,” and heading backstage, laughing like a lunatic all the way. Louis orders himself one more beer, figuring Niall is going to have to spend some time with his adoring fanbase before he makes his way back to Louis, but he’s only a few sips in when he feels a hand clap on his shoulder and turns to see the man himself behind him, covered in sweat. People are staring, clearly recognizing Niall but apparently too intimidated—by  _Niall_ , of all people—to come say hello. Louis is friends with a damn celebrity.  
  
“Niall Horan, you little  _shit_ ,” Louis says, smiling for what feels like the first time in ages, and he pulls Niall into a crushing hug.  
  
“What’d you think of the show, man?” Niall says, returning the embrace before pulling back. He takes his hat off and runs a hand through his hair. He looks almost nervous, which is hilarious given the circumstances.  
  
“Are you kidding me? It was fucking phenomenal,” Louis tells him. “Why didn’t you ever tell us that you’re a fucking celebrity?”  
  
“Knew you’d be jealous,” he says with a shit-eating grin. “Nah, man, I dunno. I started doing it secretly just to see if I could, y’know? And then when it blew up it seemed like too much to explain. And it kinda made me feel like a superhero.”  
  
“Oh my God, you’ve got a secret identity,” Louis says. “Zayn is gonna be so jealous.”  
  
Niall just laughs. “I figured when it was time to reveal myself, it’d be obvious. And it was! So now I can make you bastards come to all of my shows and support me like proper friends.”  
  
“You know we would’ve if we’d known,” Louis says, momentarily serious.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Niall says, and then jumps on Louis’ back like a spider monkey.  
  
Louis tries to tell Niall to stay at the club with his adoring public, that he could get a taxi home, but Niall was insistent on heading home. Now they’re blasting some pop station, occasionally singing along with Niall drumming on the steering wheel. It feels nice, feels easy and young. Louis isn’t stupid enough to ignore the fact that there’s anxiety and dread and hurt creeping around the edges of his mind, won’t pretend for a second that they won’t resurface later, but right now he feels okay. It’s nice that he can still feel that way, even just momentarily.  
  
“Niall,” he says, lolling his head back against the seat. He’d only had a few drinks, but it’s enough to have him just a little more pliant than normal. “You said you’d know when the time was right to tell us about this whole thing. This whole Craic business.”  
  
“Yeah?” Niall says, guiding the car around a roundabout.  
  
“Why was tonight the right time?” Louis asks.  
  
Niall pauses for a moment, his brow furrowed under the brim of his hat. “You know I didn’t start out wanting to be an orchestra director, right?” he says finally, and Louis is a little tipsy but he’s not drunk enough to be this confused by conversation.  
  
“Okay?” Louis prompts. “I mean, I didn’t really know but I could have guessed.”  
  
Niall nods. “I wanted to be a musician. Like, full-time. Wanted to be famous, wanted to write songs, wanted to tour the world. Still kind of do, actually, but it’s not that easy, is it? I tried a little bit during university, played a couple of gigs, put together a couple of bands, but it never worked out.”  
  
Louis nods. “Sounds familiar.”  
  
“Yeah,” Niall says. “Us creative types, right? So I got this job right out of uni, and it wasn’t what I’d imagined doing, but it was a good job and I made friends and it makes me happy, so who am I to complain? But I still missed making music. Missed performing in front of people. So I figured out a way to do it anyway.”  
  
“What, you just picked up a turntable and started booking gigs?” Louis says. Honestly, knowing Niall, it wouldn’t even be that surprising.  
  
“Nah,” Niall says, scrunching up his nose as they pull up to a red light. “Was at a pub, pretty fucking pissed, too, and their DJ didn’t show. I lied and told them I was a DJ, they were desperate, and from then on I’ve just kept on going.”  
  
“That’s brilliant,” Louis laughs, and it is. “You committed disc jockey identity fraud and became a legend.”  
  
“Something like that,” Niall grins. “But you wanted to know why I told you about it tonight.” Louis nods. “I always wanted to be a musician. And I kind of am, now. I get to do gigs and make people happy and I get a lot of free drinks. It’s brilliant. And just because it isn’t the way I thought I’d be living my dream doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.”  
  
“What does that have to do with me?” Louis says, though there are some dots he can connect for himself.  
  
“I’m trying to tell you that you’ve got to do something for yourself sometimes, man.” Niall pulls up to Louis’ block of flats and turns to look at Louis seriously once he’s put the car in park. “If something makes you happy, then you should do it any way you can. Even if it takes you somewhere kinda weird, it’s better to be happy and weird than sad and normal, yeah? And if you’re happy, other people will like what you’re doing.”  
  
Louis looks at him consideringly in the yellow light of the nighttime street. “You and your unexpected depths, Horan,” he says. “You spring them on me when I’m least ready.”  
  
“Not my fault you forget about them,” Niall says, sticking out his tongue. “All right, get out of my car, cranky, we’re going up to yours.”  
  
“‘We’?” Louis says questioningly as he gets out of the passenger side. He should have known better than to think this night was over yet.  
  
When they get up to his flat, though, Niall doesn’t have any plans for further debauchery. Instead, he just tells Louis to change into pajamas—and requests a pair for himself—and sets up shop on the sofa, flicking through the television channels until he finds a James Bond marathon, then turns the volume down so it’s just a low murmur.  
  
“Niall, if it’s all the same, I think I’ll just go to bed,” Louis says, once they’re both wearing flannel trousers.  
  
“No,” Niall says, pulling Louis down onto the sofa by the arm. “You’re still sad. I’m going to cuddle you until you’re not sad anymore.” Niall gets like this sometimes when he’s drunk, all affection and warm hands. He’s not drunk right now, actually, didn’t touch a drop all night, but Louis knows that post-performance high as well as anyone, knows how it gets you buzzing.  
  
“This is a flagrant violation of my personal space,” Louis huffs as if personal space is a thing he’s ever cared about, but he allows himself to be climbed upon nevertheless. Niall paws at him like a puppy until he seems satisfied that he’s made himself a comfortable spot to curl up on, and then he nuzzles his face into Louis’ chest.  
  
“Don’t be sad, Louis,” Niall says. “I love you.”  
  
“You are not like any straight boy I have ever met,” Louis says, patting Niall on top of his blonde head.  
  
“Who said I was a straight boy?” Niall argues half-heartedly. He squeezes Louis around the middle, like he’s trying to physically force some of his happiness to be transferred to Louis by osmosis. “What about all those times with Zayn, then?”  
  
“A, you were drunk all of those times,” Louis says. “And b, Zayn doesn’t count, love. Nobody’s that straight.”  
  
“All right, all right,” Niall says. “Just shut up and go to sleep.”  
  
“Really?” Louis says. He gestures weakly to the sofa around them. “Right here?”  
  
“Yep,” Niall says. “Not letting you sleep alone tonight.”  
  
“Okay,” Louis says, flooded with a hesitant warmth but pulling a spare blanket off the top of the sofa anyway. “Good night, Niall,” he says, pulling the blanket over them both.  
  
“G’night,” Niall says, muffled with his face squished against Louis. It was, Louis thinks as the soft sounds of  _Goldfinger_  lull them to sleep. It was a good night. The first one in a while.  
  
He can tell Niall’s already asleep by the soft sound of snoring muffled against his chest, but sleep doesn’t come as fast for Louis. He’s still thinking about what Niall said earlier about how he needs to do something for himself sometime, and what exactly that means.  
  
Louis has never really given much thought to whether or not he does things for himself. He always assumed he was sort of selfish, considering how much of his time and energy for most of the recent years of his life has been spent protecting himself. Keeping himself safe. But when he really thinks about it, really looks at it properly, it’s true that he never really does much that’s just for him. He’s been so busy protecting himself that he’s forgotten how to take care of himself. He’d forgotten there was a difference.  
  
Maybe Niall is right. Maybe that’s what it’s going to take to finally crawl out of this. He’s not sure anything will get him over Harry at this point, as much as it hurts to admit it, but this wouldn’t be about getting over Harry. It would be about getting out of this rut he’s been stuck in, not just since Harry left but for years. It’d be about finally feeling good again. He can barely remember what that’s like, but he’d like to. Maybe he could.  
  
He thinks, as he starts to drift off, that maybe he could try. He has to try something, because he can’t keep living like this. Maybe it’s time to try something new.

 

 

**Chapter 19.**

 The weekend before Harry left, he came ‘round to Zayn’s flat to return a few odd things of Zayn’s he’d accumulated—a scarf left in Harry’s car, a borrowed t-shirt, that sort of thing. He ended up staying for a few hours, telling Zayn about his internship, which is at some kind of fashion photography studio that takes the kind of weird pictures Zayn used to rip out of magazines and put up on his wall when he was in uni. When he left, he gave Zayn a business card for the studio, and Zayn hugged him hard and promised to call and to come visit him in the city one day. He passed the business card on to Louis once Harry was gone, and he watched helplessly as Louis chucked it into the bin.

 

Anyway, Zayn’s kept in touch with Harry since he left. It’s not like they talk every day, because Harry’s busy settling into his new life and Zayn’s busy settling into Liam, and even when they do talk Harry’s more withdrawn than he ever was, but Zayn makes a point to at least text him every couple of days. Typically his hermit tendencies keep him from bothering to keep in touch with anyone, but he’s always made exceptions for people he loves, and he does love Harry. Just because he and Louis couldn’t work things out doesn’t mean Zayn’s going to stop being friends with him.

 

He mentioned it to Louis once, only once, just a careful “talked to Harry today” slipped into the conversation, and Louis brushed it off as if he hadn’t said anything at all. Since then, Zayn has let it be. Louis doesn’t ask about Harry, and Harry’s text messages are too brief to ever mention Louis, and mostly Zayn wants to beat them both with a rock. At least Louis has actually started leaving his flat again lately. Small victories, yeah?

 

Harry’s been gone for over a month and a half by the time Zayn is able to set up a Skype date that works for both of them, and Niall comes over to his flat to join in. Zayn doesn’t know what to expect at all, but he’s pleased to see Harry again.

 

The internet connection at Harry’s flat is horrendous, so it takes them fifteen minutes to get the camera feed working. “Can you see me yet?” says Harry’s voice as a fuzzy, pixelated Harry finally appears on the screen, wearing a blazer and a confused expression.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I can see you!” Zayn says, smiling and waving. “Nice blazer.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Harry says, looking down at his chest. “Just got off of work.”

 

The picture gets a little clearer, and Zayn immediately wishes it hadn’t, because he can see now that Harry looks like hell. He’s even paler than usual, and the circles around his eyes stand out in dark purple as if he hasn’t slept in weeks.

 

“You look like shit,” Niall says flatly, dropping down next to Zayn on the couch. Zayn elbows him in the ribs. Niall just shrugs.

 

Harry laughs a little. “Thanks, Niall.”

 

“Ignore him,” Zayn says, shoving Niall’s face out of the frame. “How are you?”

 

Harry shrugs and twitches out a smile. “Can’t complain.”

 

“Yeah?” Zayn raises his eyebrows.

 

“Not without sounding like an ungrateful bastard,” Harry says. “Job’s good. Really good, actually, I’m getting great experience. Bit corporate, I guess, but good. Flat’s good. So, like I said. Can’t complain.”

 

“So you feel like shit and you feel guilty about it,” Niall says, hooking his chin over Zayn’s shoulder. Zayn doesn’t even bother to punish him for that one. It’s not like he’s wrong.

 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Harry says, hiding a bit behind his fringe. Zayn’s always thought it was a bit excessive, but now he sees its strategic use. “Can we—let’s talk about you lot, yeah? How are things with Liam, Zayn?”

 

Okay, sure, it’s an obvious ploy, but Zayn doesn’t mind falling for it. It makes Harry look a little less like the consumptive heroine of an opera, first off, so he’s really just being a good friend. Also, he has a secondary internal monologue running at all times whose sole subject is Liam, so it’s nice to let some of that out. Mostly the being a good friend thing, though.

 

He’s a little worried that being as aggressively, blissfully in love as he is will just make Harry look more like a melted wax figure of himself, but instead it perks him up a little bit. “You two are really great,” he says when Zayn pauses for breath. “I wish I were around to see it.” His smile fades a little at that, so Zayn launches quickly into a laundry list of different places around town that he’s kissed Liam.

 

He loses track of time for a bit, but Niall interrupts him halfway through a really great story about something cute Liam did with his nose the other day. Niall covers Zayn’s mouth with his hands and screams at the top of his lungs, and Jesus, he’s scrawny but he has pipes on him. Harry laughs, though, which is nice to see, and once he’s satisfied that he’s successfully silenced Zayn, Niall starts into a story of his own, something about a show at a bar and realising that he had hooked up with every single one of the bartenders. Zayn licks his hand to try to get him off, but Niall just breaks off his story with a brief, “Don’t give a shit, mate,” before continuing on.

 

It’s good, it feels normal, just lads messing about and trading stories with no boyfriends or not-boyfriends there to make things weird. Except it still is a little weird, the one thing that none of them is mentioning looming in the background of the conversation. The whole time Zayn keeps waiting for the question, and when it finally comes, it’s on the tail end of a completely random story, some mishap Harry had on the tube last week with a strange Portuguese man and his dog. Zayn’s laughing and Niall’s laughing and Harry’s laughing, and then the laughter dies down, and Harry goes quiet.

 

“So, um...” Harry says after a long while. “How, how is he?”

 

His eyes look impossibly sad, and Zayn feels fucking terrible. He hates feeling caught in the middle almost much as he hates watching them do this shit to themselves, and he knows there’s nothing he can say here. It’s not his place to try to speak for whatever’s going on in Louis’ head, and even if he wanted to, he doesn’t even know how to answer.

 

He looks to Niall for some kind of help, but Niall just scrubs a hand through his hair and shakes his head.

 

“I dunno, Harry...” Zayn says. “I mean, is there any way I could answer that question that wouldn’t just make you feel worse?”

 

Harry picks at one of his thumbnails and says nothing for a moment, and then he says, quietly, “No.”

 

“You might get a real answer if you asked him yourself,” Zayn says softly. “If you really wanted to know. I’ll be honest, Hazza, I only know what’s going on in his head half of the time anyway.”

 

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Harry says, with a laugh that Zayn doesn’t like at all.

 

“Look, mate,” Niall says, sprawling half across Zayn’s lap so that only half of his face is visible in the Skype window. “You’re not happy. What’s gonna make you happy? Because you should do that.”

 

“S’not always that simple, Nialler,” Zayn says, ruffling his hair.

 

“Fuck that, yeah it is,” Niall says. “Harry. Why are you sad?” There’s a pause, the sound of Harry’s deep breaths coming fuzzily through.

 

“I miss him,” Harry says finally, still looking down at his hands. “Even if we never... even if we couldn’t ever be together, I just wish I could talk to him. He was my best mate, you know?”

 

“You could call him,” Niall says.

 

Harry laughs another humourless laugh. “You really think he’d answer?”

 

Niall snorts. “I think that there’s a good chance he’d ignore it because he’d convinced himself it was the right thing to do. Because he’s a fucking idiot. But not because he actually didn’t want to talk to you.” He leans upright a bit, and Zayn winces as his bony elbow digs into his thigh. “Give him some credit, yeah?”

 

“No, I know, I just,” Harry heaves a sigh. “I’d feel really stupid, you know? I already feel stupid. I feel like there’s nothing I can say that he doesn’t already know, so I have no idea what I’d tell him.”

 

And okay, Zayn had been assuming that Louis was the resident shithead in this relationship, but maybe there was room for two. “Really, Harry?” he says, shoving Niall off him. “There’s nothing he doesn’t know?”

 

Harry frowns a little at him on the screen. “No?”

 

Zayn pinches the bridge of his nose. “You love him, right?”

 

There's a pause while Harry chews on the inside of his cheek. "I don't know. I did."

 

“And did you ever tell him?”

 

“No, but—”

 

Niall interrupts, collapsing flat on the floor with a groan. “You think he might need to know that, dickhead?”

 

Harry’s full-on pouting now. “No, hold on, fuck you guys. If you lot knew, which you apparently did, there’s no fucking way he didn't. Maybe I didn’t say the words, but I told him every goddamn day. He knew.”

 

“Harry,” Zayn says. “If you love him, or loved him, whatever, then you know him pretty well.” Harry nods. “Then you should know that expecting him to ever, ever assume something like that is a terrible idea. Come on, man. He’s not a stray cat who’s gonna come inside if you keep putting food out. You know that.”

 

“Yeah, I know, but,” Harry’s face crumples a bit, and God, Zayn hates being cross with him right now, but he needs to know this stuff. “Fuck, it's not fair that I had to be the one putting stuff on the line all the time. It scared me too, maybe not as much as him, but he didn't tell me anything, he never did."

 

Zayn takes a moment, and then tries to word things as carefully as he can. “I’ve known Louis for a couple years now,” he says softly. “And Harry, trust me, when the two of you were together I saw him put things on the line every single day. Maybe it was stuff that feels simple to you or me, but it was hard for him. And it’s not your fault that he didn’t tell you any of that, but you should still know.”

 

Harry’s got his head in his hands now, and Zayn can’t see his face but he can hear the lump in his throat. "Does it even fucking matter anymore?" he says thickly. "Like, what's the fucking point?"

 

Niall leans heavily against Zayn’s side, and Zayn wishes he would bust something out, some bit of wisdom that would change Harry’s mind, but there’s nothing.

 

Harry wipes a hand down his face and continues. “I wanted to be with him. You know that. And I wanted to think that—I don’t know, that just because I loved him it'd work out, but I've kind of figured out that that's not how things are. Which is shit, but life is kind of shit sometimes, isn't it? Anyway, it doesn't even matter, because it's over now, and I have to live with that, you know? I can't stop my life. I've just got to learn from this and move on."

 

Zayn clenches his fingers around his knees. That sounds exactly like something Louis would say.

 

“Fair enough,” Niall says. “I think this is all incredibly shite, but you do what you have to do. If that’s what you think will make you happy.”

 

"I just want it to stop, honestly. I want to not deal with this anymore," Harry says. "That's all I really want right now."

 

Zayn nods slowly. “Okay. I can understand that.” He wants to drive to London and drag Harry back to Manchester by the scruff of his neck and lock him and Louis in a broom closet until they learn to love each other right, but it doesn’t look like that’s on the table.

 

“Thanks,” Harry says. “Lads, I don’t mean to end this on such a shitty note, but is it all right if I sign off for the night? I’m really tired.” Zayn would be suspicious, but he really does look wrung out. “Thanks for this, both of you. It’s been really good to catch up.”

 

“Same, man,” Niall says. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? You didn’t break up with all of us.” Zayn nudges him hard, but Harry just laughs.

 

“I know. I’ll be in touch, I swear. And—I’m sorry, but would you mind not passing any of this along? Like, this stays between us, yeah? All of it.” It looks like it’s breaking his heart to say it, and Zayn is developing an ulcer.

 

“Yeah, mate, that’s fine,” Niall says. “If he asks, though, what do you want us to say? If he asks after you.”

 

Harry smiles a little. “He won’t ask,” he says, and hangs up.

 

L

 

 

Louis is doing better, and for once he isn’t just saying that.

 

It’s been slow, and it’s been difficult, but he’s edging along. He started small. At first it was just forcing himself to get up and brush his teeth every morning at the same time. Just getting up and brushing his teeth, that’s it, the smallest little ritual to feel like he could do this, like he was doing something to get things back under control before progressing to the next step.

 

Next he spent two days cleaning his flat, finally taking care of the stacks of dishes and piles of laundry he’d allowed to build up. It was tedious and boring but living like that was only making him feel shittier, so he put on some Take That and powered through it, Duchess at his heels as he moved about the rooms. When that was finally done, he lay all of his scripts out on the kitchen table and started systematically going through them, highlighting passages and picking out pages to make copies of for the kids he’s working with now. That felt good too, but the work went quickly, and once he used up all his sticky tabs he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

 

He needed something else, afraid if he didn’t keep moving he’d backslide and wind up right back where he started. He ended up digging out his trainers and deciding to start going for morning runs, just from his flat to the little park nearby and back again. If he’s being completely honest, he ends up walking more often than he actually runs, but it’s still nice. He likes strapping his iPod to his arm and wearing the running shorts he bought special as if he were a real runner—makes him feel like he’s in an advert for sports drinks or something. And besides, it gets him out in the fresh air, which helps more than he ever expected it to.

 

He was heading home from one of his walks one morning when he passed a sign stuck up on a post advertising auditions for some community theater production, little rip-off tabs with the address and date of the tryouts at the bottom. Louis stared at it for a long minute before taking one, then he immediately reconsidered and ripped the whole poster down instead, shoving it in his pocket and jogging off.

 

He spent a week in his flat rehearsing, and when he finally went in for auditions he was so nervous he thought he might be sick all over the judges, but in the end he actually landed a decent role. It’s the first time in forever he’s actually gotten something he tried out for, and that feels incredible, having someone objective tell him that yes, he is actually good at the thing he loves to do.

 

His acting workshops started up around the same time as rehearsals for his play, so now his time is split between working with the kids during the day and going to rehearsal at night. He loves being in a cast again, loves singing and learning the choreography and practicing his lines, loves getting feedback from his director and watching the whole thing come together from the inside. Sure, the dressing rooms smell distressingly of fish, and the male lead has a truly impressive ability to miss his cues, but still. It’s fun, every bit as fun as he remembered. He missed this so much.

 

His castmates have little get togethers sometimes down at the pub, but he always begs off, no matter how much they try to talk him into it. That’s another thing, the whole being around people thing. He’s trying to ease back into it, but being around Liam and Zayn still hurts a lot so he can’t handle them for long. He feels like a dick for avoiding them, especially when Liam is making so much of an effort to get to know Louis better. He even offers to go running with Louis when he hears about his new pastime, but Louis keeps putting him off. He needs that time to just be his for now. Also, Liam makes the mistake of revealing that he was once on the Olympic reserve team for the 1000 metre—of course he was—and if Louis had been considering accepting his company he definitely wouldn’t after that. Nothing like an Olympic runner to make you feel inadequate when you’re jogging along to Girls Aloud.

 

So maybe it’s taking him longer to get back into being social, but he’s taking baby steps. He starts calling Stan every afternoon to tell him about his day or sometimes just to talk. Stan is more than willing to put up with it, and those conversations become sort of an anchor, enough to keep him from totally isolating himself. He structures his days this way—wake up, tea, brush his teeth, run, do things, call Stan, do more things, sleep, repeat. It’s a little ridiculous, and sometimes it’s a chore to make himself stick to it, but it keeps him from sinking back into his depression or getting lost in his own head. It’s good for him.

 

Of course, there’s still Harry, but when you miss someone every second of the day, when it comes as steady as breathing, you learn to live with it. And Louis does. It’s not something that keeps him from his life. Instead it follows him everywhere, every stage he walks across, every hallway of the school, every inch of his flat, every night in the pub and run to Tesco's. It rides along in the passenger seat of his car and waits for him in the bath. It’s an ache and a shadow and it’s his, and he lives with it now. Sometimes it’s almost enough to make him feel like he’s not alone in his bed.

 

Sometimes there are moments that hurt more. There are always little sharp edges for Louis to catch himself on, little pins to prick him. Sometimes it’s just a song on the radio that he knows Harry always liked, or an advert for a sappy romantic comedy he’s sure Harry would be dying to see. Sometimes it’s the weather when he wakes up in the morning, or a boy with curly hair in line in front of him at the coffee shop. One night the middle of tidying up his flat, it’s the hoodie he finds shoved under his bed that still smells faintly of Harry, and he puts it on and sleeps in it that night.

 

It’s times like those that Louis is so, so thankful for his job. The whole summer acting workshop idea must have been some kind of stroke of feverish genius from July-Louis’ mess of a brain, because it’s been the thing keeping him going. The community theater stuff is really, really great, and it feels so good to perform again, but the kids. There’s no element of competition or insecurity with the kids, no worrying if he’s keeping up with anybody else. He thinks it’s good for him to be challenged by something right now, but it’s also so good to just have the kids. It’s good to feel like he’s still doing something for somebody.

 

There are about a dozen kids signed up for the program, which isn’t a terribly huge turnout but far more than he expected. He takes them in shifts, a couple of hours of one-on-one time twice a week for each of them, and he’s thankful for something that keeps him in his classroom and out of his lonely flat for most of the day.

 

Stuart Standhill was one of the first kids to sign up when Louis put up the posters, and if he’s being honest, he’s one of Louis’ favorite students to work with. The kid has got talent, and it’s a thrill to feel like he’s contributing to something that’s going to be great someday. He makes Stuart memorize monologues from movies, scenes from television shows, dozens of foreign accents, anything he can think to throw at him, and Stuart takes to it all like a fish to water. Louis knows he’s going to be a star.

 

This afternoon is no exception. It’s their final session since the first term is only a week away, and Stuart decided to turn it into a one-man review of everything they’ve worked on, ranging from an impassioned recitation from Braveheart to an entire Monty Python sketch. Louis gives him a standing ovation at the end and Stuart takes an elaborate bow. He tells Stuart how great he’s done, how he thinks he’s destined for big things, and Stuart beams and blushes and thanks him again and again.

 

Louis has just started gathering up the scripts he brought along and packing them back into his bag when he notices Stuart still hovering in front of him.

 

“Anything else I can do for you?” Louis says.

 

“Um, yeah, actually,” Stuart says. “Can I. Um. Can I talk to you about something?”

 

Louis freezes, hunched over his bag. Stuart is looking back at him, aiming for casual, but the hands clenched into fists in his pockets give him away. This, Louis thinks, is it. This is finally it.

 

“Anything,” Louis says, setting his bag aside. He comes back around the desk cautiously like Stuart might get spooked and run at any moment. “You can close the door, if you’d like.”

 

“Okay,” Stuart says, sounding relieved. He backtracks to the door of Louis’ room and pulls it shut before taking a seat in a desk in the front row. He looks incredibly small. Louis leans back against his own desk, trying to look as relaxed as possible. He can feel them both holding their breath.

 

“So,” Stuart begins. “Um. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and it’s like, I don’t really know who to talk to about this stuff, but it’s. You know. It’s something I need to talk to somebody about, and I kind of feel like I can talk to you?” Brave words, but he doesn’t seem to be quite able to look at anything but his cuticles.

 

“Of course,” Louis says, smiling gently. “And nothing has to leave this room, all right?”

 

Stuart bites his lip and steels his shoulders. “Okay. Um. Well.” He laughs a little, nervously, before finally looking up at Louis. “I’m gay.”

 

Louis keeps his face as neutral as possible, setting aside all his thoughts of yes dear I know and you and me both and oh I’m so proud of you. Instead, he just says, “Okay.”

 

Stuart nods, as if Louis has said something of value. “Okay.” He swallows hard, drumming his fingernails on the desk. “Wow.”

 

“Wow what?” Louis asks. Has he managed to screw this up already.

 

Stuart scuffs his feet lightly against the linoleum. “It’s just that, well, I guess I'm still not used to saying that out loud.” Even now, he can’t stop moving, fiddling with the zipper of his hoodie, and Louis is filled with such blind affection he can’t quite stand it.

 

“How does it feel?” Louis thinks of his mother crying on the couch eight years or so back, but also of his first days of uni and a girl with a rainbow pin who shook his hand at orientation and the rush of power that came with a simple “me too.”

 

“Fucking terrifying,” Stuart laughs. “And good. Really, really good.” Louis believes it, sees it in the way he’s relaxed back into his seat.

 

“Sounds about right,” Louis says with a smile, hoping that it’s enough to confirm what he knows Stuart must suspect. “So how long ago did you, ah, come to this conclusion?”

 

Stuart runs both his hands through his hair and lets out a breath. “I don’t know. It’s difficult to say, because like, I think I always knew?” Louis nods. “But I guess, I don’t know, I never wanted to admit it to myself? It’s scary. Like, proper fucking—sorry, sir—proper terrifying.” He grins when he sees that Louis isn’t going to chastise him for the slip. “And, I don’t know, I never wanted to be different, you know? And I didn’t want to deal with everything that came with it, and I didn’t want to let anybody down, because I guess I thought that’s what it would be. Letting people down. Somehow. So I just boxed it away, I suppose. But I think it’s always been there.”

 

“That makes sense,” Louis nods. “Though I hope you don’t still feel that being gay makes you any sort of letdown, Stuart.” He’s pleased to see him shake his head, though he doubts it’s as easy as the boy is making it out to be. “What made you change your mind? About telling people. If you don’t mind my asking.”

 

Stuart, who Louis has seen do an interpretation of the mating dance of the male honeybee without hesitation, actually blushes at that, and oh, isn’t this getting interesting. “Um. Do you know Mike Kendall? Red hair, on the footy team? He was one of the T-Birds in Grease?”

 

Well, well, well. “Yeah, of course I know him.”

 

“He’s kind of, um, my boyfriend.” And if Louis thought Stuart was squirmy before, it’s nothing to how he is now, tapping his feet and tugging on his sweatshirt cuffs and utterly failing to fight a smile.

 

Oh, Louis wants to hold a parade for this kid. “Is that so.”

 

“Yeah. It was like, I don’t know. We’d gone to school together forever but we never really knew each other? Like, obviously I knew who he was, but I never really thought about him. But then he was in the play with me and I helped him with the choreography and stuff and we started getting to know each other.” Louis thinks of the two of them dancing in their leather jackets and wishes he’d managed to catch it on film. “And, I don’t know, I was kind of in awe of him. Because my absolute worst fear, like, the thing that kept me up at night, right? It had actually happened to him, as bad as it could get, and he seemed like he was okay. Like, everybody found out he was gay, and he just kept doing what he always did.” Stuart’s full-on beaming now, looking at Louis like he’s just so happy to be able to brag about how wonderful Mike is.

 

“And I just thought that was amazing. Still do, actually. But that’s why we started hanging out, ‘cause I wanted him to teach me his ways or something, and he was just, you know, really nice to be around. He’s really, really cool. I’m kind of a lot to deal with sometimes?” Louis snorts and nods for him to continue. “And he balances me out, I guess. I don’t know, it was just nice to be around someone who was like me, and who made me happy, and who treated me like he didn’t care what I was. And didn’t mind when I acted like a complete prat. So when I realised that I maybe sort of really kind of wanted to snog him it wasn’t the end of the world, because for the first time I knew that even if he didn’t like me, he wasn’t going to punch me. Which was nice.”

 

“Definitely a good trait in a potential partner,” Louis intones, and Stuart giggles.

 

“Agreed, sir. Anyway. In the end, I spent weeks working up the nerve and then I showed up at his house in the middle of the night like a twat and was daft and awkward and then we snogged in a shrub.”

 

Louis laughs out loud at that, because, well, it was funny, the image of Stuart tackling his lanky beau into some shrubbery. “Well done.”

 

“Thanks.” Stuart does look proper proud of himself, as well he should. “So now we’re going out. Which is brilliant. He’s brilliant. And I don’t know, eventually things with Mike just became too much to keep pretending. I don’t really see the point anymore? I always thought that I had to figure out how to be normal if I wanted to be happy, but like, I keep thinking, what if I can be this and be happy too? Because I am happy.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “And to be honest, being gay is one of the least weird things about me. And Mike likes all my other weirdnesses, mostly. So yeah. Fuck it, sir, pardon the language. I think I’m sticking with weird.”

 

“Go with what works, I always say,” Louis says, rubbing his chin with mock thoughtfulness. “You seem in good shape, Mr. Standhill.” Better shape than most of us, he doesn’t say.

 

Stuart ducks his head but doesn’t disagree. “Thanks, sir. I appreciate that. So I guess what I’m asking is... what do I do now?”

 

Ah. “Well.” Louis takes off his glasses and cleans them with one of his shirttails. “From personal experience, let me tell you, you are already ahead of the game. Most people your age who struggle with their sexuality spend years getting to where you are right now. And it’s not like it’s a race anyway.”

 

Stuart nods seriously. Louis is used to students thinking he has the answers, but rarely has he felt the weight of it so much as right now. “Thanks. Really. That’s really good to hear.”

 

“Do you feel like you want to tell your family? You don’t have to, but it’s what a lot of people do when they first figure it out.”

 

Stuart takes a few deep breaths, staring into the middle distance, before answering. “I want them to know. I don’t want feel like I’m lying to them all the time. I just want to be done pretending.” His eyes move to meet Louis’ again. “I don’t want to be worrying about who knows what while trying to live my life.”

 

“Very reasonable.” And very scary. “How do you think they’ll take it?”

 

“I’m not sure,” Stuart says, heaving a sigh and resting his chin on one of his hands. “My parents are pretty relaxed about most things, so I don’t think they’ll kick me out or anything crazy like that, but I don’t know if they’ll be happy about it. I’m sure they must have suspected at some point, though. Everyone did, didn’t they?” Louis stares back and him and pointedly doesn’t answer. Stuart snorts. “Yeah, fair enough. So I’d be willing to suspect that my mum won’t be surprised, at least. I’m really worried about my little brother, though. He’s always sort of looked up to me, and I’m really afraid that I’m going to lose that if he finds out. He’s young, you know? I don’t know, I’ve just always wanted them all to be proud of me. And I know that coming out to them shouldn’t change that, but it doesn’t mean it won’t, or that it’d hurt any less.”

 

“Fair enough,” Louis says, conscious of how Stuart has started avoiding his eyes again. “You’re allowed to be hurt by things that are stupid, or thoughtless, or wrong. That’s okay. But in terms of them being proud of you—Stuart.” He looks back up at Louis at the sound of his name. “They should be. Proud of you, that is. They have a lot to be proud of, they really do. You’re a great student, a brilliant actor, extremely talented and charismatic, people love you, and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You have a lot to offer. Being gay is a part of who you are, but it’s not all there is. And even if they don’t like it, it doesn’t take away from any of the other things that are great about you.” Stuart nods, and Louis smiles. “Plus you pulled the first lad you ever properly tried for so there’s something else to be proud of right there.”

 

The laugh that pulls out of Stuart is the best thing Louis’ heard in weeks. “Thanks.”

 

“And Stuart,” Louis continues, “Are you proud? Of yourself, that is?”

 

Stuart drums his fingers on the desk, stares at his shoes for a moment, and then lifts his head with determination in his face. “Yeah. I am, sir.”

 

“Well then. Great.” They smile at each other for a moment before Louis moves on. “So what about him? Mike, I mean. Do you want to tell your family about him?”

 

Stuart nods, mostly to himself. “I think so. I feel like it’s a lot to put on them all at once. ‘Hey, guess what, your son is gay and also here’s the boy he’s going out with!’ But I just, I wouldn’t feel right not telling them about him, because they’re so important to me and it doesn’t feel right to hide him from them when he’s such a big part of my life. I want to do better for him than that. He’s been so great about this whole thing. He’s so sure of himself, and he’s just... really, really good. And good for me. Stable. I hope they’ll see that.”

 

“I hope they do too,” Louis says. “It sounds like you two have something really special.”

 

Stuart wrings his hands for a bit, indecision written all over him, before he blurts out, “I haven’t told him yet, but, um, I think I, I think I might be in love with him. Does that sound stupid?” He cringes slightly, every inch a teenage boy.

 

Louis has to make a concerted effort not to hug him. “No, Stuart. Not at all.”

 

He pulls one of his feet up into his lap and starts fiddling with his shoelaces. “How can you know if you’re in love with somebody?”

 

Louis has to huff a laugh. To think he’d thought he was out of his depth with Chekhov. “I don’t know. I’m not sure anybody knows. I don’t think you can really quantify it. It’s such a messy thing. I think sometimes you just have to go with your gut and shut everything else up.”

 

Stuart leaves his shoelace alone in favor of chewing on the strings of his hoodie. “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Tomlinson?” He winces immediately. “Sorry, that’s, I shouldn’t have asked that, it’s none of my business.”

 

“No, no, it’s okay,” Louis says, waving him off. When it comes to it, it’s easier to say than he thought it would be. Maybe because it’s not to the person in question, or because Stuart expects him to be better at this than he is. “I thought I was a few times when I was younger, but... just once, really, I think. Only once. But it was enough for me to respect what it can do.”

 

“Do you think I should tell him?” Stuart asks after a moment, voice small.

 

“Do you want to tell him?” Louis responds, gaze steady.

 

“Yes.”

 

Louis nods. “Then yes. If he’s anything like how you describe him, I doubt you’ll scare him off now.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Okay. Okay, I will. And I’m going to tell my family everything soon.” Stuart looks resolute, and Louis knows this will be harder than Stuart thinks it will be, but he thinks the kid might just be all right.

 

“Have you told any of your friends yet?”

 

He shrugs. “Most of my close friends. I mean, I’m realising that everybody sort of already knew, which is convenient but kind of embarrassing. But I felt like I still wanted to tell them myself, if that makes sense.” He pauses for a moment before continuing, voice pitched low. “Mike and I have been talking about next year a lot, and I think when school starts back, we’re going to try to be, like, public? About being together? I don’t know. The thought of that still scares the hell out of me, but I’ve found that I’ll do a lot of things that scare the hell out of me. For him.” Another pause. “And for myself, too, I think.”

 

Louis is rethinking the parade plans from earlier. Maybe some sort of festival would be more appropriate. Or a bank holiday of some kind. “That’s... that’s really, really brave, Stuart. I’m really proud of you. Even if you two change your minds, even thinking about that right now is really amazing.”

 

Stuart grins and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Thanks. And thanks for listening to me talk, sir. I feel a lot better about a lot of it now.”

 

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Standhill,” Louis smiles. “Honestly, though, any time you want to talk about anything, I’m always around. What you’re doing right now is really hard, probably one of the biggest challenges you’ll ever have, and if there’s anything I can ever do to help, I’d be happy to do it.”

 

“I sort of feel like you’ve already been doing it, to be honest,” Stuart says, which, wow. “I just, I’ve always been really grateful that you were around, because I love theater, and if I didn’t have that as some kind of place to get away from all this stuff, I don’t know how I would have made it? Like, I’m sure I would have, but I’m really, really glad I didn’t have to. I’ve always felt like it was okay for me to be whatever I was here. I really don’t even know how to thank you for that.”

 

The two of them sit in silence for a moment before Louis has to break it. “Fucking hell, Stuart, you’re gonna make me cry. Cut that out.”

 

“Sorry, sir,” Stuart laughs. “Won’t happen again.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and makes a face. “Um, wow, I just realised what time it is. Really sorry, but I’m actually, um. I have a date. In about 15 minutes, actually, so I should probably go.” He looks at Louis apologetically.

 

Louis waves him off. “Of course. Wouldn’t want to keep Mike waiting.”

 

Stuart winks. “Definitely not. And thanks again, sir. Really.”

 

Louis doffs an imaginary cap. “You’re very, very welcome. Glad to be of use.”

 

Stuart heads out the door, but pauses halfway through and sticks his head back into the classroom. “Oh, and thank Coach Styles for me too, will you? If you see him?”

 

Louis’ head snaps back up at that. “What? Why?”

 

Shrugging, Stuart says, “For getting the footy lads to try out for the musical. If it weren’t for the two of you, Mike and I would’ve never gotten together. So I owe him one too.”

 

Nodding, Louis wills his heart rate back into submission. “I’ll let him know. Now go see your boy.”

 

Bouncing on the balls of his feet, Stuart looks like the human embodiment of nervous energy. “I’m gonna tell him. I’m gonna tell him today.”

 

Louis gives him a sharp salute as he leaves. “Good luck,” he says into the empty room. After a few minutes, he manages to collect himself and finish packing up his things, and when he drives home, he finds he can’t stop smiling.

 

That night when he’s in bed with Duchess curled up by his feet, he wants so badly to call Harry up and tell him all about his day. He told Harry about Stuart a few times, whenever Harry was worrying about Mike, and they used to commiserate about how hard it was to watch and feel so limited in what they could do. He knows how excited Harry would be to hear this news, how proud he’d be of Stuart and Mike and even of Louis himself. That part hurts to think about, but he knows it’s true. He can practically hear the way Harry’s smile would sound in his voice when he’d shout down the phone, “Louis Tomlinson, you’re a fucking hero.”

 

And the crazy part is, he kind of feels like one. It’s mind-blowing to him that somebody actually looked at him and thought that’s my lifeline. He doesn’t know how to deal with that. He feels better about himself than he has in months, honestly. But he still doesn’t call Harry.

 

It’s sort of strange now. He feels like he’s come a long way in the time since Harry left, somehow. Far away from Harry, in all the space he left behind, there’s room to take out all of those things he never had the courage to unpack before and open them up and look it all over. And he thinks now, in this post-mortem state, he can just about admit it.

 

He can just about admit that they were in love.

 

He’s not going to delude himself into thinking it would’ve ever worked, or that it still could. That’s still not something it’d be healthy to let himself hold on to. But he can admit that somewhere along the way, he felt it, and it was real. He can just about handle the thought that he may have been in love with Harry—that he maybe still is, not that it matters—and that for a while Harry was maybe in love with him, and even though they fell out of it, it happened. He can’t deny that.

 

So he fucked it up beyond repair, and maybe that was his only shot, and maybe he’ll just have to live with that forever. But there’s also Stuart Standhill and Mike Kendall and a whole bunch of kids who might have a better chance at it than he did, and maybe Harry wasn’t wrong about everything.

 

Louis wonders what things might have been like if he and Harry had met when they were younger. He thinks about 18-year-old Louis, finally out of the closet and ready to throw himself headfirst into something with the first fit boy who blinked twice at him, and how different things might have been if that first boy had been 16-year-old Harry selling cupcakes in a bakery somewhere. He wonders if they would have fallen for each other right away, if he would have been able to love Harry the way he deserved back then, before everything else made him cautious. He wonders how much heartbreak he could have saved himself, if they’d still be together all these years later.

 

He thinks it means something that he can think those things now without his brain short-circuiting, that he can tell a 16-year-old to go tell his boyfriend he loves him without hesitation. He thinks he’s better than he was.

 

When he was in uni, he had a friend who was studying psychology. He remembers her telling him about the “ideal self” and how the further you are from it, the worse you feel. He thinks about everything that’s happened since then, uni and Manchester and the things he’s learned from Harry and the kids and community theater and a thousand tiny revelations, and he thinks he’s getting closer. He thinks he’s inching towards a Louis who’s more like the Louis he’d like to be.

 

He rolls over and pulls the blankets up over his shoulders, and just like every other night, he falls asleep thinking of the phantom warmth spooned up against his back and hand that’s not holding his.

 

It goes on.

 

✖

 

 

It’s six o’clock in the morning, and Duchess is lying across his neck this time. It’s the first day of term, and this year Louis starts it by nearly being asphyxiated by his pet. An auspicious beginning.

 

He rolls Duchess off him and onto the side of the bed. She yowls and swipes at him, but he’s fast enough to avoid her claws this time. She’s fast, but he knows all her moves by now.

 

Louis manages to stand and half-walks, half-stumbles to his kitchen to put the kettle on. He bounces on the balls of his feet, surprised by his own energy. He’s excited, he really is. Teaching the kids over the summer was nice, but he wants to get back to his real job. He likes his job, and he’s missed it.

 

Once he’s downed his first cup of tea, burning his tongue a little, he rushes through the rest of his morning routine. In the bathroom, he gives himself a curt nod in the mirror after he washes his face. Chin up, soldier, he thinks. You know how to do this. He feels good this morning, feels like this is going to be one of his good days, but he still spends about half his time walking on eggshells around himself. He can’t do that today; at the very least, he can’t let his students see him do it.

 

A shower, a tasteful outfit, and two slices of toast out of the way, he waves goodbye to a supremely uninterested Duchess, grabs his bag, and heads out the door. He’s five minutes ahead of schedule, even. Thermos full of tea in one hand, he drives to school with the radio up, humming along in an attempt to keep himself energized. He pulls into his traditional parking space and sees Zayn’s car already parked a few spaces down.

 

He spies the man himself when he walks inside, Zayn coming out of their lounge with a cup of tea in each hand. “Isn’t it a beautiful day in the neighborhood, Mr. Malik?” Louis singsongs at him, delighting in the way Zayn’s eyes narrow to slits. Some things don’t change.

 

“Just ‘cause I haven’t committed murder before doesn’t mean I can’t start,” Zayn growls as he walks past. Still, he turns his head and calls back after Louis, shouting out, “Good luck, Tommo, see you at lunch.” Yeah. Some things don’t change. It’s going to be a good day.

 

He’s just settled into his room and is waiting for his first batch of new students to start doing the same when he notices a commotion in the hall outside of his room. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for the kids to be buzzing on the first day back since they’re all catching up from the summer, but there’s something strange about the particular scene he sees when he pokes his head out of his door. Yeah, it’s the same sort of crush of noise and talking by the lockers, but they don’t usually look so shifty about it.

 

That’s when he sees Mike Kendall come around the corner, great ginger manchild that he is looming a head above most of the crowd, and Stuart Standhill next to him. They’re holding hands.

 

Louis feels his heart stop for a second as he watches them make their way down the hall together. Stuart looks like he’s about to explode, either with pride or with nervous vomit. Mike, on the other hand, looks utterly content with the world. Louis is not going to get teary over this, nope. He’s not.

 

Stuart looks up and catches Louis’ eye across the hall, and Louis does his best to smile encouragingly at him without running over to hug them both or crying like a mum dropping her kid off for the first day of school. Stuart returns the smile and gives Louis a little wobbly nod before he passes.

 

Once Stuart and Mike are gone and he’s alone with the hallway full of noisy students, he can’t help but notice that not everyone looks as thrilled as he is about recent developments. He makes a mental note to start writing students up like it’s going out of style if he hears so much as a snide word. Hell, he’ll take on his fellow teachers if he has to.

 

He tells Zayn and Niall as much over lunch, the two of them nodding along in agreement. Stuart will be in Zayn’s afternoon literature class, and he promises to keep an eye on him. Niall doesn’t have Stuart or Mike in his orchestra classes, but he’ll “put the fuckers in detention until they’re back in nappies” if he hears anyone start talking shit, so there’s that at least. Louis bites into an apple and feels something like peace, surrounded by friends as good as these. It’s almost enough not to notice the empty fourth chair at the table.

 

The first day passes in a blur, and Louis finds that he feels better about his job than ever. He can feel it in the set of his shoulders, the way he feels himself smile when he stands up at the front of his room. Maybe he’s still on the mend, but in some ways he’s better than he’s ever been.

 

His mum calls him later in the week to check on him, probably because she knows how stressful the beginning of the year always is. He finally admits to her then that he was seeing someone for a while, and that things ended badly and he’s been in the process of recovering from it for months. She demands to know Harry’s name and whereabouts and offers to break his kneecaps herself, but Louis just laughs a little and tells her not to worry, that he’s not angry at him anymore, that Harry wasn’t the only one to blame. He wonders if she can tell how much he misses Harry just by the tone of his voice on the phone.

 

He still misses Harry. Of course he still misses Harry. He thought maybe that would’ve faded by now but it hasn’t. It’s bearable, but it’s always there, and he’s starting to think it always will be.

 

Now that he’s let go of the anger and all the bad things, he can remember Harry fondly. He wasn’t perfect, and things were a mess, but he was wonderful and sweet and funny and kind, and he was beautiful, and for a little while he made Louis so, so happy.

 

If he has to miss somebody forever, at least he picked a good one.

 

✖

 

 

Louis should have learned the first time around that he and complex sound equipment don’t mix. He’d managed to stay away from it for the first few weeks of term, but now the leaves are changing colors and he’s spending his free period sorting through more wires and cables than he’s ever seen in his life. His class on British theatre is about to start a unit on Webber, and he’s trying to get his afternoon lessons set up in advance so he doesn’t embarrass himself with a series of technical difficulties. He’ll embarrass himself in private, thank you very much. Besides, it’s not like he’s got any fit boys with convenient timing to help him out this time.

 

He’s examining what appears to be a cable with USB ports on both ends when there’s a hesitant knock at his door. He looks up, expecting one of his students, but is pleasantly surprised to see Liam standing in his doorway. Normally Liam will just swing by to see Zayn over lunch; he’s never come to just see Louis before.

 

“Liam,” Louis says, putting down the USB abomination and dusting off his hands. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

 

“Just stopping by,” Liam tells him. He’s got his hands in his pockets and he’s just hovering in the door like he doesn’t know what else to do. “Zayn said this is when your free period is?”

 

“Indeed it is,” Louis says, nodding at his empty classroom. “You can come in, you know.”

 

“Right,” Liam says, ducking his head as he shuffles inside. He shuts the door behind him. “Well, um. I just wanted to come and talk to you for a bit.”

 

“Let me guess. Fire department putting on a Christmas pageant and you need my expertise?” Louis jokes. He’s actually got an idea of what Liam is probably here to talk about, but he’d been hoping to be spared this conversation. Or at least to just hash it out with Zayn instead, who knows how Louis gets. “I warn you, I charge an arm and a leg, although I may lower my price if they take their tops off.”

 

Liam laughs, running a hand through his hair. “No, actually, um, I noticed you haven’t been around much lately,” Liam manages haltingly. “And I’ve been feeling really bad about it. Zayn really misses hanging out with you. He keeps saying we need to let you do what you want to do, but I just feel bad because he’s your best friend. I feel like it’s my fault, because you sort of vanished after the two of us got together.”

 

God, Louis feels like such a prick. “Liam, it’s not—”

 

“No, it’s okay,” Liam interrupts. “Like, if you don’t like me or something, that’s okay, I just feel bad for taking up all of Zayn’s time and stealing your best friend. I never meant to come between you or anything.”

 

Louis rubs his forehead with one hand, pushing his fringe back. “No, Liam, it’s really fine. It’s not that I don’t like you. I like you a lot, actually, and I’m really happy for you and Zayn. It’s not that at all,” Louis tells him. A few of months ago he’d have probably run screaming from a conversation like this, but he doesn’t want to do that anymore. What the hell has not talking about his feelings done for him lately? Plus, Liam has a face that makes you want to spill all your secrets, and Louis is not nearly as immune as he used to be. “It’s just that it’s kind of hard for me to be around the two of you sometimes. Because of everything.”

 

“Because of Harry?” Liam says, and then immediately cringes at himself. “Sorry.”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Louis says. “Yeah, because of Harry.”

 

“Oh,” Liam says. “Well, that’s good. I mean, wow, no, sorry, I didn’t mean it’s good that you’re sad about Harry, I just meant it’s good that you don’t hate me. Although now you might because I’m making a complete prat of myself.”

 

Louis laughs a little ruefully. “It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. It’s not like he’s Voldemort, we can say his name. But yeah, it’s just... it’s hard for me to see you two so happy together sometimes. And that’s my problem, and it’s not fair to Zayn for me to stop hanging out with him because of that, and I’m sorry for worrying the two of you.”

 

“No, I get it,” Liam says. “Is it—do we remind you of how you were? I’ve been there, I know how it can be.”

 

“Sort of?” Louis says, taking his glasses off to clean them. “It’s more that you remind me of how we weren’t, I guess. There were a lot of things that I couldn’t do with Harry, a lot of things I can’t do and won’t ever get a chance to, I guess, and fucking something up as badly as I did means it kind of hurts to be around people who got it right.”

 

Liam looks at him consideringly, head cocked to the side like a golden retriever. “You’re so sure it’s over, then? I mean, I didn’t know you very well back then, but you seemed good together.”

 

Sliding his glasses back on, Louis sighs. “Sometimes being good together isn’t enough, Liam. I would give anything for things to have ended differently, but it’s too late now. It’s over. So there’s no use worrying about what’s done. I’d rather focus on how I live now, and part of that is figuring out how to be a better friend to Zayn. And to you.”

 

Liam is still just looking at him. He opens his mouth and closes it a few times, clearly trying to decide whether or not to say something. Eventually he slides into one of the desks, leaning on his elbows. “Can I tell you some stuff?” he says, sounding slightly confused by his own words. “Stuff about me, I mean.”

 

Louis doesn't know where this is going, but if Liam is feeling self-revelatory today he's not going to stop him. Maybe knowing him better will make it easier to see him and Zayn as friends again, and not just the walking embodiment of everything Louis' done wrong. He nods, and Liam nods back, taking a deep breath and starting to talk.

 

"A couple of years ago, I was supposed to be getting married," Liam begins. Louis remembers this, remembers Liam telling him he'd been engaged while Zayn hid in a cupboard. "I'd been with this girl for ages, and I was so in love with her, and we were planning a wedding and everything, and it didn’t work out. It wasn't really anybody's fault, but we just sort of fell out of love. Well, she fell out of love with me, mostly. I couldn't really understand it at the time, because I was so sure that she and I were meant to get married and raise kids and have that life. There was such a clear story, and then it just stopped. Fell apart. And I was so upset about it that I took a job in Manchester just to get away from all of that, and I didn't really know how I was ever going to be happy without her."

 

Liam looks up to make sure Louis is still following. He nods at him to continue, but he wonders what Liam is hoping to accomplish here. Louis already knows that what seems like a fairytale can fall apart. This isn't news to him, hasn't been since he was a teenager.

 

"I pretty much didn't do anything besides work when I first got here. I definitely didn’t try to find anyone else to be with. In my head, I was supposed to be with her, you know? I couldn't imagine life going any other way. That was who I was." He pauses for breath and then continues, doing a piss-poor job of hiding his smile. "And then I met Zayn. And I never, ever, ever expected to fall for somebody like him, or anybody ever, really. But I did. Couldn't help it." He shrugs happily, and Louis can't help but smile back.

 

"It took me totally off-guard, and I had no idea what to do about it. I thought he was so cool and experienced and all that, and he had terrifying friends like you, and I figured I never had a shot with him. Plus there was the whole part where I never really liked a guy like that before, or at least not so much that I would actually go after him. That was really confusing, and I'm still not sure what it means, but, anyway, the point is, I never thought he'd actually go for somebody like me." Louis thinks about all the hours Zayn spent whining about Liam, and wonders if Liam has any idea how wrong he actually was. He also wonders if Liam has ever said this many words together in his life.

 

"I had myself tied in all these knots because of a story I was telling myself, Louis. The way I felt about Zayn scared me, so I decided that Zayn scared me, and I made up all these reasons for me to be afraid of being with him. I very nearly convinced myself they were true, because that was easier than actually taking the risk." Liam looks up from his hands and looks Louis straight in the eyes. "That scares the hell out of me, Louis, the fact that I almost tricked myself out of the best thing that's ever happened to me because I was convinced I couldn't get that lucky."

 

Louis isn't sure if his ears are ringing, or if Liam's words are just ricocheting inside his brain.

 

"It's funny, because Zayn's always writing stories and talking about stories, and that was what I was kind of getting mixed up in all along. I got so caught up in telling myself how I thought it was going to happen, or how I thought it should happen, and my own stupid insecurities, that I sort of lost sight of what mattered, which was that there was this person that I wanted to be with, this incredible person who wanted to be with me too, and was telling himself an entirely different story.

 

"I had no bloody idea what I was doing when I showed up at Zayn's door after he stopped calling me. I kept telling myself how stupid I was being the whole time I was going over, but I couldn't stop myself. Part of me, the tiny secret smart part of me, set aside all the bullshit and saw what was important, which was that I was happy when I was with him and not happy when I wasn't. So I had to go see him. And I'm so glad I did, because Zayn had given up me, and if I had never taken that chance then I never would have gotten to see what we could be, which is... pretty amazing. I just, I love him, Louis, so much, and I can't imagine anything worse than if we had never talked again and he had lived the rest of his life never knowing what he meant to me. That's the worst ending I can think of.

 

"But that's the thing, though, there aren't really endings, are they? There don't have to be, not unless we want there to be. Life keeps going, and we keep going, and even if we can't rewrite we can still change our minds. It's like Zayn says, we've got to write our own story, but we don't have to stick with the plot we picked first, Louis. So that means that happily ever after doesn't really exist, sure, but it means a lot of better things do. If we go after them."

 

Liam stops talking, apparently out of words. Louis just sits there frozen for what feels like at least a minute, staring at Liam, and then he feels his mouth open and he hears his voice say, "Oh my God."

 

He's on his feet in less than a second, half tripping over cables and cords as he runs back behind his desk and grabs his bag. He thinks he might have kicked an extension cord halfway across the room, but he's not sure. He definitely doesn't care.

 

Fuck it. Fuck being afraid, fuck talking himself down, fuck pretending he doesn’t feel the way that he does. Fuck giving up, even if it's too late. It's not too late to stop lying, at least.

 

"Louis?" Liam says as Louis knocks over half the things on his desk in a clumsy rush, grabbing his keys and his phone. "What are you doing?"

 

Louis stops halfway to the door, eyes wide, and he's sure he looks absolutely mad but it's the last thing he's thinking about right now. This is the closest he's felt to sane in months.

 

"I've got to get on a train," he says. "There's a two o'clock train, and I have to be on it."

 

He runs out the door and makes it ten steps into the hallway before he turns around, runs back, and hugs Liam as hard as he can. He hopes his fingers digging into Liam’s back say everything he doesn’t have time for right now. One last rib-cracking squeeze, and he sprints off again. He’s running very, very late.

 

 

 

**Chapter 20.**

 

  
Louis slams open the door to his flat with enough force that it hits the opposite wall and bounces back closed. By that time, though, he’s already at the rubbish drawer in the kitchen, rummaging around in a panic. He knows it’s in here, knows for a fact that he put it in this drawer after he fished it out of the bin—there! He pulls out the business card Zayn gave him, dog-eared and tea-stained but still legible, and carefully slides it into his wallet. As he moves to close the drawer he spots something else in the far back corner, almost hidden under electrical tape and used-up batteries. He stares at it for a moment before closing the drawer forcefully.  
  
He checks to make sure Duchess’s water bowl is full, making a mental note to ask Zayn to come by to feed her. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” he says to her as she winds between his legs. She just purrs and headbutts his shins. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and grabs his bag off the table. He pulls out all his work stuff—God, he hopes Liam thought of a way to cover for him fucking off in the middle of the day—and throws in a hoodie, an extra pair of pants, and a book he grabs blindly off the shelf.  
  
He feels like he needs things, like he needs a plan, but he can’t think properly. Everything is overwhelmed by a siren inside his head that’s wailing  _go go go_  and he’s pretty sure that if he doesn’t do this now he’ll never do it at all. He grabs a handful of granola bars—when the fuck did he buy granola bars?—and throws that in the bag as well, dimly aware that he probably will need to eat something at some point. Breathing fast and hands shaking, he zips up his bag and looks around his flat. Seeing nothing else he needs to bring with him, he walks quickly out, closing the door behind him.  
  
Ten seconds later, he storms back inside and walks straight to the drawer in the kitchen. He yanks it open and grabs the shining object in the very back, shoving it into the front pocket of his bag and banging the drawer closed again before he can change his mind. Now he’s ready.  
  
It’s one-fifteen, and there’s a two o’clock train. He’s going to be on it.  
  
He throws himself into his car and speeds to the station, violating at least half a dozen traffic laws along the way and not giving a damn about any of them. He slams his car to a stop in the car park, half-falling out onto the pavement and wrenching his bag out as he goes. It’s twenty to two by the time he screeches to a halt at the back of the queue for the ticket booth, and it’s all he can do not to yell at the pensioner counting out coins at the front that he’s on his way to the grand romantic gesture he’s been waiting his entire fucked up life to perform and  _can she possibly count any faster please._  
  
As soon as he’s got his ticket he’s off again, almost knocking over a pile of luggage and at least three different people on his sprint to the platform. One of them yells something after him, but he doesn’t catch what the man says, because all he can hear is his heart pounding in his ears and his feet on the station floor and, above it all, the voice over the loudspeakers telling him that time is running out.  
  
He makes it onto the train. He’s out of breath and he may have sprained his ankle, but he makes it onto the train and drops down into a seat that's thankfully surrounded by other empty ones just before the doors close. He's not sure he could deal with making small talk right now.  
  
In that moment of relief, he pulls out his phone, meaning to text Zayn and ask him to go round and feed Duchess that night. Instead what comes out is  _going to London, wish me luck x._  
  
He hits send and then locks his phone, his knee jogging restlessly as the train starts to heave forward, leaving the station. He can’t quite keep his thoughts together, though, and then he’s unlocking his phone again and tapping out another message.  
  
 _That man of yours was worth every second xxxx_  
  
Louis turns his phone off after that, because he can’t handle human contact right now. The countryside races past like it’s as impatient for this as Louis is, like it’s pushing the train along as fast as it can. He tries to read his book, tries to distract himself with the half-finished newspaper Sudoku he finds wedged in the seat cushions, but he can’t make himself focus. It’s like that siren is still going off in his head, that warning that’s he running out of time, like he’s going to run out of courage any second now and collapse back into the person he’s tired of being. He spends half an hour just stalking up and down the aisle of the train, swaying slightly as the tracks curve. Anything to keep moving.  
  
Just outside two hours has the train pulling into Euston Station with a whine, and Louis has been bouncing up and down by the car doors for five minutes when they finally slide open with a hiss.  
  
He ignores the voice telling him to mind the fucking gap and hauls himself out onto the platform, fishing the business card out of his wallet. He hasn’t been to London in a while, and it takes him a few minutes to figure out where the fuck he’s going and sort out a tube pass before he’s running again. He doesn’t even have a time limit anymore but he can’t afford to take his time about it. The half hour and one transfer on the tube feel strangely familiar, takes him back to his days of coming to the city for auditions and casting calls, riding the tube with nerves filling up his head and the distant fear of rejection humming along with the electricity on the tracks.  
  
As soon as he’s back on a platform, he’s running up the steps toward daylight. He doesn’t take the time to take in the London sights and instead narrows his focus down to the map outside the tube entrace. He finds the street he’s on, finds the street he needs to get to, and picks his next move. That’s all he can do, just pick the next place to go and get there as fast as possible.  
  
Somehow it feels like the studio should stand out more than it does, since it’s been such a huge fixture in Louis’ mental landscape for months as the thing that stole Harry away, but it doesn’t. It’s just a simple building sandwiched between storefronts like any other place. It doesn’t look like the kind of place that could have ruined everything. Strange.  
  
He wrenches the front door open so swiftly the little bell on the top almost comes off. The receptionist looks up as he walks in, putting down her phone, and he doesn’t even have time to come up with a lie.  
  
“I’m looking for Harry Styles?” he says, breathing heavily. He braces up against the desk and tries to put together any sort of excuse, but his heart is racing too fast.  
  
“Are you the model who missed the shoot yesterday?” she asks, brow arched. “That’s convenient, I was just about to phone your agency.”  
  
Fuck it, sure. “Yeah, sorry about that. You know how it is.” He tries to smile winningly at her, but he’s pretty sure it comes out a bit deranged. Harry is somewhere in this building, and this is his last obstacle. He feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin. “You wanted to reschedule?” he asks, taking a stab in the dark.  
  
“Appointments aren’t my job, first off, and you should be thanking your lucky stars we’re willing to reschedule and didn’t just drop you on the spot.” Louis nods, eyes wide, and wonders if he could find Harry before security threw him out if he just made a break for the lift. The woman sighs heavily. “Hold on, let me call upstairs and find the intern. He’s in charge of scheduling,” she says, and picks up her phone again. Louis drums his fingers on her desk, sure that any second some terrifyingly handsome bloke is going to walk through the door and blow his cover. On hold, the receptionist looks him over. “Bit short for a model, aren’t you?” Louis just sort of shrugs, because it’s not like she’s wrong.  
  
He’s saved from having to figure out a response to that when whoever she’s waiting on picks up her call. She exchanges a few words with whoever’s on the other end of the line—Louis tries not to think about who it could be—and then hangs up. “Well, he’s supposed to be hanging clothes for a shoot right now,” she says, “But if you go up to the studio he’s prepping he should be able to reschedule you.” She writes down and hands to him a room number on a sticky note. Room 217. “Don’t be late again!” she calls after him as he walks away, and he waves over his shoulder.  
  
He rushes into the lift and presses the 2 button about twenty times. How can it take this long to go up two floors? When the doors open he’s pretty sure he bursts out like he’s in a goddamn action movie, panicking slightly because he doesn’t know if 217 is to the right or to the left and right now that feels like a catastrophe. It’s left, he figures out, it’s to the left and then he’s at the door and he’s inside. And the room is empty.  
  
It’s not a particularly large room, but it’s well-lit with a white backdrop and few racks of clothes off to the side. It feels a bit like a stage. Louis can take some comfort in that, at least. Familiar surroundings. If it has to happen somewhere, it might as well happen here, where there's nowhere for Louis to hide if he loses his nerve.  
  
Now that he has nowhere to go, he starts to feel terror rising in him. Before he’d had the distraction of making his way here, spending the last four hours or so barrelling his way to this spot in front of this plain white backdrop. Now that he’s stopped, all of his anxiety has caught up to him at once. He knows this is where he needs to be, what he needs to be doing, but he has no idea what he’s going to say. He has no idea if Harry will even be willing to hear him say it, after everything.  
  
There’s comfort, though, in the fact that there’s nothing left to lose. He’s already lost Harry, lost what they had, and even if what happens next doesn’t get Harry back, at least he’ll like himself a little better on the other side. At least Harry will know.  
  
Louis thinks of Niall and his ridiculous secret life that he willed into existence by loving something enough to chase it down. He thinks about Zayn’s faith and patience, about Liam’s honest bravery. He thinks that if he can manage to be the best person he’s ever been for the next ten minutes or so, he might be able to do this.  
  
The door opens, and Louis stops breathing.  
  
It’s so surreal, after all this time and all this distance, that Harry is standing in front of him. The same body and the same mouth and the same stupid curly hair. The same hands that haven’t been touching him, the same eyes that haven’t been looking at him, the same person that hasn’t been filling up his bed and splitting Chinese takeaway and making him laugh until he cries. It doesn’t feel like they should be able to share the same space like this anymore, but they are, and this is happening, and suddenly all his nerves are lifting. Louis doesn’t think he could stop this even if he wanted to, and it’s a relief. With Harry right in front of him, he feels the full weight of everything he’s been holding back for months, and God, he finally gets to let it go.  
  
He knows how he feels. He always knew, all along, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. He’s ready now.  
  
Harry doesn’t see him at first, too busy trying to wrangle a massive armload of clothes. He’s wearing a blazer over a white v-neck, all effortless professional chic. He’s still got his camera around his neck even though he doesn’t seem to be allowed to do any of the actual photography, but things like that have never stopped Harry from taking pictures of things before. Louis is terribly, terribly fond of him.  
  
Wobbling and grunting a little, Harry drops the heap of clothing on a nearby table. He straightens up and turns around, messing about with his fringe in that habitual way of his, and then his eyes land on Louis and he freezes on the spot.  
  
His eyes run over Louis wildly, flicking back several times to his face like he has to keep checking that it’s really him. Louis wonders if Harry’s had close calls like Louis has, if he’s seen people out of the corner of his eye that looked just enough like him to give him a heart attack as he walks down the street. The thought should please him, but it just makes him sad.  
  
Harry is still just looking at him, fiddling with his camera and blinking rapidly, and he’s just on the other side of the room but Louis feels like he’s miles away. He needs him closer.  
  
“Hi,” Louis says, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep himself from doing anything stupid with them.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says, looking stricken. He stares at Louis, and Louis stares back, and then he lifts his camera and there’s that old sound of the shutter closing and opening as he takes a picture. Louis blinks a little at the flash, but doesn’t move or try to hide his face. Not today.  
  
Harry lowers the camera a little, looking at Louis with that little line between his brows like he can’t imagine what Louis is doing there. He looks scared, and Louis did that, and he’s going to start making up for it now.  
  
He’s an actor, or at least he used to be. He’s given a lot of speeches in his life, used a lot of beautiful language to say beautiful things. Harry deserves that, deserves an epic soliloquy in iambic pentameter, deserves a volume of sonnets, and Louis wants to give him that, but when he looks at Harry and the fear in his face he doesn’t feel like an actor. He feels as much like himself as he ever has, stripped bare, and so what bubbles uncontrollably out of his mouth is as simple and inelegant as it is true.  
  
“I’m sorry,“ he starts, because it’s the most urgent thing in his head. Well, second most urgent. But right now he needs to get that look off Harry’s face. “Haz, I’m so sorry. I know this is sudden, and out of the blue, but I had to come see you. I had to tell you how sorry I am.”  _Snap,_  and Harry’s taken another picture, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off of Louis once.  
  
“And I know,” Louis swallows hard, “I know that’s not enough, and I know it’s probably too late, and maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but I just—I need you to hear everything.” Harry still hasn’t said anything, hasn’t so much as nodded, but he’s still looking at Louis and hasn’t fled the room yet, and Louis figures that’s as good as he’s going to get.  
  
“I need you do know how much you meant to me. Mean to me. How much I loved you, the whole time.” The words almost echo in the unforgiving empty brightness of the room. Louis feels something rising in his chest, like he’s going to laugh or throw up or both, but he keeps going. If he stops to think about what he’s just said he’ll fall apart. “God, Harry, I loved you the whole time. Still do, as a matter of fact.”  
  
 _Snap snap snap,_  and Harry is holding down the shutter button, but Louis can see a tremor in his hands.  
  
“I’m sorry I never told you. I should have, I should have told you a million times. I almost did, a dozen times, a hundred times, and I fucked up every single one. I’m so sorry for that, Haz. I loved you before I ever touched you, and I think maybe at some point,” and here Louis has to take a deep breath, “I think you may have loved me too.”  
  
Harry hitches in a breath, and Louis knows the feeling.  
  
“I hope so. God, I hope I got lucky enough that you loved me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of that, of what we had. I’m sorry I couldn’t accept it then. And I’m not—I didn’t come here to try to excuse how I was. I had reasons, but that’s not what I want to say right now.” He lets out a long, shuddering exhale, and digs down for the last of himself. There’s not much left, now, but if he goes home alone he wants to go home empty, too, wants to leave everything he has in this room. “I want to say that even though I never said so, I was with you the whole time, Harry. You had all of me that I knew how to give. And if you would ever have me again, I would give you all the rest.”  
  
There’s one more _snap,_ and Louis has more to say but he also has to know. “Jesus, Harry, is this the time?”  
  
Finally, finally, Harry speaks, and it’s like a jolt straight down Louis’ spine to hear that same low voice. “You know what I realized? When I moved?” Louis just shakes his head. “I don’t have any pictures of you, not straight-on. Not looking at the camera. Just ones I had to sneak, just bits and pieces of you.”  
  
“I’m sorry for that, too,” Louis says, but Harry just barrels on.  
  
“I’ve got pictures of people I met on the street and never saw again, and I didn’t have any pictures of you. Which drove me crazy. And I thought, when I saw you, I thought, well, this might be the last chance you get, Styles, so.” He swallows thickly. “So you might as well get a picture before he runs away again.”  
  
There's a tiny voice in the back of Louis' head insisting that Harry's the one who ran away, but Louis knows what he means. He was gone before Harry ever was. It's only fair.  
  
“I’m not leaving,” he says slowly. “I mean, I will if you want me to, obviously, but. I don’t want to leave you. I never did. I want to be with you.” He pulls his hands out of his pockets and tugs at his own fingers, wringing his hands and trying to stay in once piece long enough to get this last bit out. “And I don’t know how you feel anymore. Maybe you hate me, I wouldn’t blame you, but. I love you. I loved you the first time you kissed me, and I loved you at Christmas, and I loved you when I couldn’t even look at you. I love you even more now, I think. And I can’t imagine I’m going to stop anytime soon.”  
  
That’s all. It’s all he has and he knows it isn’t enough, isn’t even close to enough, but all he can do is stand there with what he’s just done and stare at Harry. Harry, who’s looking at the floor and whose chest he can see expanding against his shirt with fast, shallow breaths and who he loves so, so much.  
  
Carefully, Harry leans over and puts his camera down on the stool next to him. He looks back up at Louis, and his eyes are wet, and there’s something rueful playing around the corners of his mouth.  
  
“I tried,” Harry says, and his voice is rough and shocking in the quiet of the room, “I tried to stop loving you, Louis, I tried so hard and I couldn’t, I couldn’t,” and Louis doesn’t remember moving but there had been space between them, yards of space, and now there isn’t, now his hands are on Harry’s lapels and Harry is tugging him in by the back of his neck and saying, “I couldn’t, Lou, I couldn’t,” against the corner of his mouth before shifting and  _yes._  
  
He holds onto Harry’s lapels like they’re the only thing keeping him alive, and maybe they are, because he’s finally kissing Harry again and he never wants to stop kissing Harry again and it’s all out there, it’s all done and the world didn’t end. It actually worked. He can’t fucking believe it, can’t fucking believe he’s standing here in a photography studio in London kissing Harry, and Harry loves him, Harry loves him, Harry  _still_ loves him.  
  
Harry is mumbling things in between kisses, and Louis commits every word to memory, “love you” and “love you” and “fucking wanker” and then “love you” again. He says it back just as many times, and he’s not afraid of it anymore, not at all. How could he be, when it makes Harry hold him closer and dig his fingers in and smile against Louis’ mouth? How could that frighten him, now that he knows how much worse it was to go without? Louis would give up every secret he has to keep Harry warm under his hands.  
  
At some point Harry starts stumbling backwards, and Louis gets him up against a table and kisses him like it’s what he was born to do, like every part of his life has been leading up to right now. His life has never felt simpler. This is what he’s supposed to be doing, this right here, this is what he needs to do for as long as he can. He needs to cradle Harry’s face in his hands and pull Harry’s lip into his mouth and push his thigh between Harry’s legs and he needs to tell Harry he loves him every day for the rest of his life. Simple, simple, easy like breathing.  
  
Harry tries to spin them around, his arm around Louis’ waist, but they’re so close together that they trip over each others’ feet, falling into the half-full rack of clothes. It goes crashing to the floor with a metallic clang, and they stagger apart, Louis unable to keep in an absurd little giggle.  
  
“Oh _shit,”_  he says, half-whispering, his hands still on Harry’s chest. He’d sort of forgotten that Harry was supposed to be actually working. It’s kind of tough to remember even now, with Harry’s mouth red and his cheeks flushed. Louis did that. Louis gets to do that, hopefully forever.  
  
“Fuck,” Harry says, his hand tightening in the back of Louis’ shirt. “Fuck. Okay. Someone will have heard that.” He turns to look at Louis, his eyes wild. “You can’t be here, shit,” he says, and then rather undermines his point by leaning down to kiss Louis again.  
  
Louis only lets himself melt into it for a second before pulling back in a supreme act of willpower. “Where,” he says, panting a little and steadfastly ignoring the way Harry’s eyes are fixed on his mouth. “Where should I go? What do you need?”  
  
Harry swears again, finally letting Louis go and pacing away, hands in his hair. “There are some back stairs,” Harry says. He leans down and start snatching clothes up off the ground haphazardly. “Turn left when you leave the room, walk to the end of the hall, and you should find them. Don’t worry about the alarms, they don’t actually go off. You’ll come out the back of the building.”  
  
“Okay,” Louis nods, full of every kind of adrenaline. “What are you going to do?”  
  
“Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll meet you back there,” Harry says, righting the clothes rack. Louis nods and heads toward the door, silently going over and over Harry’s directions in an attempt to keep his head, when Harry’s voice stops him. “Lou.”  
  
Louis turns to look at him, but Harry doesn’t say anything else. He just looks at him, desperation and hope and still a little fear in his eyes. Louis knows what it means. He feels it himself, the wrench of walking away from Harry for even a moment so soon after finding him again.  
  
“I’ll be there, Hazza,” he says firmly. Harry nods this time, and Louis can’t help but smile at him for a moment before pushing through the door and walking briskly to the stairs. They’re right where Harry said they would be.  
  
He makes it down to the back of the building without incident, which is mostly good, but it means he has fifteen full minutes to kill waiting for Harry, which means in turn that he’s so antsy that he wants to crawl out of his own body. He paces back and forth behind the brick edifice of the building, kicking restlessly at the gravel, running over every detail of what just happened in his mind until he can’t take it anymore. Finally he just sits and puts his head between his knees, taking deep breaths and trying to stay calm. Harry will kill him if he has a heart attack.  
  
He’s nervous, but it’s a good sort of nerves. He’s nervous like he used to get before a show he knew was going to be good, like when he knew he had a chance to knock it out of the park and just wanted to get started, to get onstage and prove what he could do. He thinks this might be the role he was born for.  
  
His head snaps up at the sound of crunching gravel, and there’s Harry, coming around the side of the building and stopping dead when he sees Louis. Louis scrambles to his feet but doesn’t move. Harry just leans against the brick corner, looking winded, and Louis is going stay right here and let him decide what comes next.  
  
He can’t keep from beaming, though, taking a moment to look at him properly. Harry’s hair is a little bit longer than it was, though still just as curly, and he’s wearing fewer bracelets on his wrists. Along with the camera bag strapped across his chest he’s carrying a briefcase, of all things, which Louis is going to give him endless shit about later. But that doesn’t matter at the moment, because whatever was keeping Harry frozen in place has snapped, and he’s dropping the ludicrous briefcase and covering the ground between them in a few long strides, turning Louis to hold him against the brick wall and bury his head in his neck.  
  
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Louis says mindlessly and half to himself, sliding his hands up the curve of Harry’s back. He feels Harry’s warm breath on his throat just as his hands reach up to tangle in his hair, and he can’t do anything but pull Harry’s head up and kiss him.  
  
A sound escapes him, half-laugh and half-sob, and Harry just swallows it and gives back his own, crowding close to Louis and curling his tongue into his mouth with a soft moan. Louis wants him this close forever, resents every molecule of air that slides between them, hates whatever made the universe big enough for more than just the two of them.  
  
Harry pulls back and presses a kiss to Louis’ chin, moving to dust more back along his jaw. Louis tips his head back and tries to focus. He never wants to forget what this felt like, this moment right here.  
  
“I missed you,” Harry mumbles against his skin.  
  
“I love you,” Louis breathes out, because he can.  
  
A shiver goes through Harry. “I love you, too,” he says quietly. He nips at Louis’ earlobe, and then continues. “Let me take you home, Lou.”  
  
“Yes,” Louis says. “Please.”

**Z**

  
  
_“Liam,”_  Zayn hisses into his phone. He’s in a utility cupboard again, a place to which he swore never to return, but he’s not supposed to make personal calls during class time and these circumstances definitely fall under the heading of extenuating. Even waiting until the break between two blocks of class after he’d read Louis’ texts had been excruciating, so there’s no way he’s waiting until the end of the day. Needs must. “I’ve been trying to get him to see reason for  _months._  What did you  _say_ to him?”  
  
“I dunno,” Liam says. Zayn can picture his shrug. “I just told him how much I loved you, and how I feel about us, and that seemed to work.”  
  
Zayn is quiet for a long moment, biting down on the back of his hand.  
  
“You have no idea,” he says finally, “how well you are going to get shagged tonight.”  


 

**Chapter 21.**

 

Even though Harry ducked out of work a few minutes early, the tube is still completely packed with commuters. There's barely enough room for them to squeeze onto the same car together, much less sit down, but Louis could not give less of a shit about it. He'd let Harry shove him into the basket of a bicycle and pedal him home of that's what it took. When the doors slide closed, Harry leans back against them and pulls Louis close, giving him a little more breathing room.  
  
Harry's chin hooks over Louis' shoulder and his arm wraps around his waist, his other hand reaching out to grab onto the last free free handrail. When they take the first curve, Louis sways but doesn't stumble, secure in Harry's arms. He reaches out for the handrail anyway, though, his fingers sliding over Harry's. He can feel Harry smile against his shoulder, and he's quietly proud of himself.  
  
Sneakily, Harry slips two of his fingers into Louis' front pocket, like he's testing the waters, getting reacquainted with Louis' space and how much permission he still has to it. Louis drags a finger down Harry's wrist to say yes, and he feels Harry release a breath against him, rubbing his nose into his hair. That matter settled, Louis sighs and lets his eyes drift shut, lulled into relaxation by the motion of the tube and the white noise of the people around him and the warmth of Harry's body against his.  
  
A particularly sharp turn pulls a screech from the tracks, and Louis jerks back to alertness. He can hear Harry snickering at how jumpy he is, is just making a mental note to make him pay for that later, when he's distracted by noticing a pair of eyes on them. There's a woman on the opposite side of the car, leaning against the other set of doors. She's older, probably in her forties, with close-cropped brown hair, and Louis isn't sure how long she's been staring at them.  
  
He's prepared to bristle, to shoot her a death glare and leave her a smoldering wreck, when she smiles at him. She looks fond, and nostalgic, and endeared, and suddenly Louis is almost overwhelmed by a wave of vindication. Damn right, strangers are smiling at them on the tube. They're young and adorable and in love, and now that he thinks of it, Louis kind of wants to shout about it until everyone within earshot realizes how wonderful they are. Louis' never been much of a lad for public displays of affection, but right now he hopes everyone who looks at them can read it all over their faces. He wants them to assume. They'll be right.  
  
Seized by the impulse, he cranes his neck back and presses a kiss to Harry's cheek.  
  
"What was that for?" Harry mumbles.  
  
"Just 'cause," Louis says as he turns back, and he winks at the grinning woman on the other side of the car.  
  
They get off at Harry's stop and Harry leads Louis up through the station and onto the street by the hand. The sun is low in the sky, and the lights are starting to come up on the buildings around them, making up for all the stars that will be hidden behind clouds and light pollution. It's not a very pretty street, but it's Harry's, and that makes it the best thing Louis' ever seen, because he never thought he'd get a chance to see it.  
  
Harry lets them into the building and Louis can feel the static electricity buzzing in the air between them, but they're stuck on the lift with an assortment of strangers, so all he can do is lean his shoulder against Harry's and wait for the little number five to light up on the panel above the doors. They're off down the hall as soon as the doors creak open, and this is it. He grins, unable to contain it anymore and bounces along next to Harry, happy just to be with him, to feel his body next to him and know that it's real. Harry's here. That's the happiest thing he can think of.  
  
"Fair warning," Harry says as he unlocks the door. "My flat isn't much."  
  
"That's what you said about the last one," Louis reminds him, "and I liked it just fine."  
  
Harry gets a funny little frown on his face, and he says, "This one isn't like that one was."  
  
The door swings open, and Louis steps inside as Harry shuts it behind him. The flat is tiny and the only furniture is the battered dining set and the mattress on the floor, but those are the only things it has in common with Harry's old flat back in Manchester. There are no lights around the ceiling and no scarves on the window, no soft sounds of music or cupcakes on the counter, and all around him, the grubby walls are completely, utterly bare. Louis looks around the floor and sees a pile of boxes shoved into one corner, labeled with things like "bits and bobs" and "homey touches" in a handwriting that Louis thinks probably belongs to Harry's mum or sister. They haven't been unpacked.  
  
The one on the top is open, like maybe Harry started trying to sort through it all at some point but gave up. Louis can see photographs and paintings and vinyl records peeking out of it, things he recognizes from Harry's walls. The photo of the four of them at the carnival is sitting on top.  
  
Louis looks up at Harry, who is watching him look at the boxes and the empty walls, and he doesn't know what to say. He feels sobered suddenly, brought down a bit from the giddiness of being with Harry again, now that he's confronted with the storm damage.  
  
Harry just shrugs, shaking his hair out of his eyes. "It just didn't feel right," he tells Louis. "Putting it all back up. It would have felt like a lie to pretend like this was home."  
  
"Haz," Louis says, and the emotion in his own voice almost takes him by surprise. He wraps his arms around Harry's neck gently, standing up on the tips of his toes to kiss Harry's forehead when he bows his head. Harry slides his arms around Louis' waist and lets Louis cradle his head against the side of his neck, hands buried in his hair.  
  
It's been a little more than a year since he met Harry, and in that moment, holding Harry in the doorway of a flat in London that barely even looks like it's been lived in, every single one of those days catches up to him.  
  
"I'm sorry," Louis says again, but this time he's not the only one, this time Harry says it at the same time. Louis chokes out a teary laugh at that, feeling Harry do the same against his neck.  
  
"You know, it's not always about you," Harry teases. "My job isn't quite what I thought it would be, and I miss my family and the lads, and sometimes—I don't know, it's easy to feel lost here sometimes. There's lots of reasons it doesn't feel like home." He rubs between Louis' shoulder blades gently. "But yeah, you were the biggest one. Doesn't make it your fault, though."  
  
Louis loosens his grip a little, letting his hands slide down to Harry's shoulders, and Harry lifts his head and kisses Louis again. It starts as a smile and then melts into something deeper, Harry's tongue swiping across the inside of Louis' mouth. It feels brand new and achingly familiar all at once, the way time has passed and so little has changed.  
  
Except things have changed, Louis  _wants_  them to change, and he pulls back from the kiss, resting his forehead against Harry's. "It feels like it's my fault," he says quietly, feeling small.  
  
"Hey," Harry says, cupping his hand around the back of Louis' neck and pulling him back to look at him properly. "There were things I could have done, okay? I'm kind of an adult, too, y'know, you don't have to put all of it on you. I wasn't apologising just for fun." He scratches gently at Louis' scalp with his blunt nails. "We can talk about this, if you want."  
  
"Do you want to do that now?" Louis says. It feels like it's important to ask this. It feels like it's important to talk every part of this through, because they spent so long not doing it, and he won't let that happen again. It's still an effort for him, nowhere near second nature, but it's not as hard as he thought it would be. He moves one hand down to pull Harry's other hand away from his hip and lace their fingers together. "Do you want to talk? About everything? We can do that."  
  
Harry considers him for a moment, eyes warm. "I do want to talk about all of that," Harry tells him. "I want to talk about everything. But right now, I really don't want to stop kissing you, if that's okay." He leans in close, pressing their foreheads back together, and Louis feels Harry's free hand slide down to his hip, right at the waistband of his trousers. "Can you promise me that you'll still be here? After?"  
  
"I promise," Louis says without hesitation. "Anything. I promise."  
  
"Thank God," Harry says, and then he's pulling Louis by the waistband back towards the mattress. It takes all of three steps to get there, and then Harry is toeing off his shoes before sinking down and pulling Louis down on top of him.  
  
"Posh new job and you couldn't even buy a bed," Louis teases before Harry silences him with his mouth and a slap to the arse that makes Louis squirm happily against him.  
  
"Still better than that voyeuristic cat," Harry mutters against Louis mouth in between kisses, already sliding his hands under Louis' jumper.  
  
"You know," Louis says, his voice muffled as he sits up to let Harry pull the jumper and the shirt underneath it over his head, "Duchess only has lovely things to say about you."  
  
Harry actually brightens up a little at that, the complete idiot. "Is that so?" he grins as Louis pushes his blazer off of his shoulders.  
  
"Don't look so smug about it," Louis says, leaning back to let Harry get his jacket the rest of the way off. "She just knows you're a pushover." Harry laughs and pulls his shirt off too, and Louis barely gives him the chance to get all the way out of it before claiming his mouth again. He can't believe he ever went without kissing Harry, can't believe he made it through twenty-five years of life without it and can't believe he let himself ever go without once he'd had it. Can't believe he almost let himself go without it for the rest of his life.  
  
Harry seems to have missed this just as much as Louis has, judging by the way he moans when Louis presses the full length of his body down into him and doesn't waste any time getting his hands on the swell of Louis' arse. They're making up for lost time, moving fast and urgent, trying to touch all of each other at once. Louis breaks the kiss to press his mouth against the side of Harry's jaw, biting at Harry's ear, and the sound of Harry's soft laugh is everything.  
  
"Arm up," Louis says, touching Harry's left arm. He wants to find that old familiar place on the inside of Harry's bicep and mark it again, like he hasn't since that morning back in the spring in Harry's old flat. He wants to make it his again.  
  
Except Harry goes still at the words, and when Louis looks up at his face, he's not smiling anymore. He's just looking at Louis, and Louis is unnerved by what he sees there, the little bit of fear in his eyes.  
  
"It's okay," Louis says instinctively. He kisses Harry's shoulder. "It's okay."  
  
And then Harry closes his eyes and lifts his arm, and that's when Louis sees it.  
  
Right there, in the little secret place where he used to leave the shape of his mouth on Harry's skin, there's the outline of a star in black ink. It's not fresh, Louis can tell. There's no redness around it, no raised edges, just smooth skin and five points and dark lines standing out stark against the fairness of Harry's skin.  
  
Louis absolutely cannot move.  
  
"I got it three weeks after I left," Harry says, and Louis is so startled by the sound of his voice that he almost cracks his head against Harry's when he looks up.  
  
"Is it," Louis says, but his voice doesn't come out right and he has to swallow and try again, "is it—"  
  
"Yeah," Harry says. His eyes are open now, and he's looking at Louis like he's trying to be very careful with the way he answers the question. "I, um. I just kind of decided that even if it was over and I never saw you again, I wanted to keep that part of my life with me. Like, permanently."  
  
He presses his lips together and waits for Louis to respond and, oh, if Louis has any doubts left about what exactly Harry means when he says that he loves him, this is the part where they're blown apart. This isn't a photo or a note or a scrap of something novel and pretty. It isn't something he can put on a wall or keep on his shelf. It's something that's with him all the time. It's something that lives with him, that keeps living with him.  
  
"Do you like it?" Harry asks quietly, looking for a moment breathtakingly young.  
  
Harry wants this every bit as much as he does, Louis realises, just as desperately and constantly and completely. In the breath between coming to that conclusion and crushing his mouth into Harry's again, Louis thinks that he has never loved anything quite so much in his entire life.  
  
Pushing Harry's shoulders flat against the mattress, Louis leaves his mouth and goes to work on his arm, biting down on the tattoo. Harry groans, his hips pushing against Louis where he's straddling him, and God, Louis had almost forgotten how responsive he was. He thinks about trying to keep him quiet, pushing his fingers into his mouth to give him something else to do with it, but he decides he wants to hear him. He wants to hear how loud Harry can get for him with nothing but this.  
  
He sucks down hard on the mark that's already forming in the star, one hand braced on Harry's chest to feel the way it expands with every heaving breath. He smooths his tongue over the red skin, feeling how warm it is, and then nips gently at it, trying to stay inside the lines of the star.  
  
"Lou," Harry pants, and Louis bites down again, hard. " _Fuck_ , Lou," Harry almost shouts, his hips snapping up again. Louis can feel the hard line of him through their trousers and can't help but roll his hips down against it, hissing a breath through his teeth. When he pulls away from Harry's arm, the star is livid, with a promising bruise already forming. He bends back down to lick at it a few more times before giving it one last long suck that has Harry whining and fisting his hands in the sheets. Louis realizes he's still grinding down against him, can't stop himself, and if circumstances were different he'd want to see if he could make Harry come just like this. He has other plans tonight, though.  
  
He leaves off, finally, sitting back up straight and just rubbing his thumb lightly over the mark. "I'll take that as a yes, then," Harry says, once he's caught his breath.  
  
There's humour in his eyes, but Louis doesn't play along. He just leans down and captures Harry's mouth in a careful kiss. It's sweet, and delicate, and Louis doesn't deepen it until he feels Harry's eyelashes flutter against his cheek. Then it's slow, and thorough, and when Louis sits back up Harry is looking at him completely starry-eyed. "I love you," Louis says. "So much."  
  
Harry lifts a hand to Louis' face, running his thumb across his cheekbone. "I love you too," he says, his voice low and just a little bit broken. Louis turns his face into the touch, nipping lightly at the heel of Harry's hand, and then starts shifting back down Harry's body.  
  
"Budge up," he says, making himself room between Harry's legs. He runs his nails through the coarse hair leading down from Harry's navel before going to work on his belt and trousers. "What, wearing pants now, Styles?" he says when he reaches the black boxer briefs underneath.  
  
"Yeah, I'm a sell-out," Harry grins, lifting his hips so Louis can slide the whole lot down. A little bit of tugging and untangling later, and Harry is finally naked. Louis briefly considers robbing a bank so he could pay Harry to just loiter around his flat naked on a permanent basis, but then he remembers the more pressing issue, which is Harry's cock standing hard and flushed and waiting for him.  
  
"Mmm, missed  _you_ ," Louis says, and Harry is still laughing when he bends his head to lick the first long stripe up the shaft. He has, is the funny thing, he's missed this body that he knows so well. He's good at this, he knows he's good at this, and sometimes getting Harry off felt like a work of art.  
  
So he knows that Harry likes having attention paid to the head, likes it when Louis uses his hands to stroke him while he sucks him off. He thinks that maybe Harry likes the way Louis' hands look wrapped around him. Whatever it is, it still holds, because it's not long before Harry is having trouble keeping himself from thrusting up into Louis' mouth.  
  
Blowjobs have never been Louis' favourite thing to do, honestly, but he likes doing this for Harry. He likes how much it wrecks him, how Harry seems surprised every single time. He likes how hard Harry tries to stay in control, because he knows that Louis doesn't really like having his mouth fucked. He likes the taste of him, and the way Harry will kiss him frantically when it's over. The size of him might make Louis' jaw ache after a while, but it's worth it for the way he gets harder and harder in Louis' mouth. It's worth it for the sounds he makes.  
  
He's being uncharacteristically quiet this time, actually, and Louis pulls almost all the way off and lifts his eyes to check on him. What he sees makes him moan around Harry's cock, pressing his hips down into the bed.  
  
Harry's got one arm—his left arm—braced back and clinging to the edge of the mattress. His head is up on his pillows and tilted to the left, and he's craned his neck to get his teeth in the flesh of his upper arm, biting down on the bruise Louis left there, the one that's filling up the tattoo Harry got for him. Louis can't tell if he's doing it to try to keep himself under control or if it's getting him off too, if the pressure on the sensitive spot is adding to whatever Louis' mouth and hands are making him feel. He keeps his eyes on Harry as he swallows him down farther, and he watches Harry bite down harder, the skin right under his teeth blanching where they cut in. Louis feels his own cock twitch in his trousers at the sight, at every different way Harry is his in this moment.  
  
Louis doesn't want it to stop yet, hasn't had enough of Harry looking like that, so he takes his time with it, coaxes Harry toward the edge again and again without ever getting him quite there. Harry's chest is covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and Louis watches it strain as he works him, watches the muscles flutter and contract. He's gorgeous like this. He's always been gorgeous, but the context of this, the knowledge that this is the body of someone who loves him, of someone he loves, makes it so  _striking_. Louis has never thought of himself as particularly lucky, but today is changing that fast enough to give him whiplash.  
  
He takes Harry in deep again, living for the way Harry's mouth falls open and his lower lip drags against the tattoo. Harry's so, so close, Louis can taste it in his mouth, and this time he decides to let him have it. He picks up the pace a little, and he feels one of Harry's hands on the back of his head, twisting his fingers into Louis' hair. He expects encouragement, but instead Harry tugs gently, pulling him off.  
  
"I—" Harry starts, and then he looks down and sees Louis looking back up at him, and his whole body shudders. He screws his eyes shut like he's in pain, and Louis realises that he's trying not to come from just the sight of Louis between his legs.  
  
"You can come, Haz," Louis says gently, and he's still not even touching Harry but the sound of his wrecked voice almost makes Harry come again, and God, that's fucking amazing. "I want you to."  
  
"Not yet," Harry grinds out, voice breaking, and he has to take a few huge, shaky breaths before he's willed himself down enough that he can stand to open his eyes again. He steadies himself and looks back down at Louis. "I want—fuck, Lou, please, I want—"  
  
"What, love?" Louis says, pushing up onto his hands.  
  
Harry pulls Louis up and kisses him, tasting himself on Louis' tongue, and then he moves his mouth to Louis' neck. "The first time you make me come again," he says, catching his bottom teeth on Louis' throat as he goes for his jaw, "I want it to be while I'm inside of you."  
  
And Louis wanted to make Harry come, but yeah, okay, that sounds better. "Yeah, Haz," he says, suddenly incredibly aware of how restrictive his trousers are. "I want that, I want that."  
  
Shifting his weight, Harry grabs Louis around the waist and rolls them over. Louis has never quite gotten over that initial surprise, the shock at the way Harry goes from being a bit taller than him to suddenly surrounding him completely when they're close like that. It's offset, he supposes, by the way Harry is fumbling with his belt buckle and chanting "off, off, off," like a child.  
  
"For God's sake," Louis says, half-laughing. "You get the shoes and I'll get the rest, all right?" Harry obliges, pulling off his shoes and tossing them aggressively into a corner as Louis peels off first his trousers and then his pants. His cock bobs free, thick and full, and Harry wraps a hand around it right away. Louis lets out a happy, toe-curling sigh to finally be touched, and Harry looks just as pleased.  
  
He assumes Harry is going to go down on him for a bit, considering that always been Harry's default, especially when he's opening Louis up, but instead he just looks at Louis for a bit as he strokes him. Finally, he opens his mouth. "Lou—" he says, hesitant. "What if—there's something I wanna try, yeah?"  
  
"Yeah, Haz, what?" Louis says, pumping up into Harry's fist, desperate for something more.  
  
"I want to eat you out," Harry says, blushing a little but not backing down.  
  
Louis is surprised, but even more surprised by the way his cock pulses in Harry's hand at the thought. He hadn't ever thought about it, but now that the idea has been raised he wants it. He really wants it. "Yeah, yeah, fuck," he says, and Harry's expression changes from nervous to almost feral, and he surges up Louis' body to bite at his lips.  
  
"Let me do this for you, God, I want to so much, ever since you did—" and Louis remembers, remembers white knickers and how Harry completely fell apart, and how intimate it felt even then. "Let me," Harry says again, and Louis is nodding and nodding and rolling over as Harry grabs a pillow to slide under his hips.  
  
He always feels that moment of vulnerability when he's in this position, that moment of over-exposure where there's nothing but bedding in front of him and he can't see what his bedfellow is doing. It's heightened now in anticipation of something new, not for him per se but for  _them_ , the first time they've done this. It's not just heightened, though, he thinks as Harry runs his hands down Louis' back and rubs at some of the knots there. It's also just better, God, it's hotter, because it's Harry, because Louis is making this choice, because he's vulnerable and he's choosing to let it happen. He's already leaking against the pillow just from Harry's hands on his arse.  
  
Then Harry's tongue makes first contact and Louis' entire torso arches up off the bed.  
  
God, it's not like he's never done this before, but it's the first time in a while, and he'd forgotten how different it was from just fingers, how it's softer but somehow more insistent, more overwhelming even before it's inside. Harry's just giving him long, flat licks, and Louis can't help but push back against it, needing more.  
  
"Hazza," he whines, "don't tease, God," and almost immediately regrets it when what was soft turns hard and urgent, licking him open and leaving him a raw nerve. It's like his body doesn't even exist anymore except for where Harry is touching him, like no other feeling could ever break through the haze and static that fills his mind when Harry pushes his tongue inside him.  
  
When he did this for Harry, it was about wanting to make him feel something he hadn't felt before, but this time seems like something different. It's in the way Harry keeps drawing circles on Louis' hip with his free hand, the way he seems so focused on what Louis is feeling. Harry has always been generous in bed, but Louis has never felt quite like this before, like Harry lives and dies by how much Louis gets off.  
  
He knows he's making noise, couldn't possibly be keeping all of this inside of him, but he couldn't describe it if he tried. There's nothing but the feeling of being exposed, being taken apart, and he's blindly grateful when Harry slides a finger inside him, because at least it gives him something to focus on. At some point he must have stopped bracing himself up on his elbows, because now he's lying flat on the bed, biting down on Harry's sheets with his arse still propped up on the pillow. He's so fucking hard, unbelievably hard, and the pillow gives him some sort of contact but almost no friction when he tries to grind down against it, torn between needing pressure on his dick and wanting to keep pushing back against Harry.  
  
It must show that he's getting close, because slowly the feeling starts to fade away, and Harry is trailing kisses down his shaking thighs and up his back instead, murmuring soothing things that for all Louis knows could be responses to things he's said. "D'you want me now, love?" Louis makes out as Harry kisses him between the shoulder blades. "Are you ready?"  
  
"Yes, God, please," Louis says, and when Harry pulls his finger out of him Louis rolls over, maneuvering to keep the pillow underneath him. Harry has gotten up and is rummaging through a bag by his bed, coming out with a lube and a condom.  
  
"Always keep those handy, eh?" Louis says, raising an eyebrow and hoping Harry will hear the unspoken question behind it.  
  
"Don't be jealous," Harry says with a knowing grin. "Haven't been using it on anyone but myself, and you're a lot cuter than my right hand."  
  
Louis smiles back, spreading his legs as Harry slicks up two fingers. They work in easily after everything, and Louis is already getting that warm, well-fucked feeling. This is going to be a hell of a night.  
  
"Hazza," he says, a thought striking him. Harry stops and looks up at him, but Louis waves weakly at him. "God, no keep going. But I—I haven't slept with anyone else. Since you, I mean."  
  
Harry looks at him as if he's unsure of where this is going. "Okay? I haven't either, I mean, so I guess that's good."  
  
"So we don't need," Louis trails off, motioning toward the condom. "I mean, unless you want it." His voice cracks a bit at the end of the sentence as Harry pushes in a third finger.  
  
"No, I don't want it," Harry says carefully. "As long as you're sure?" He spreads his fingers out inside Louis, stretching him even more, and Louis lets out a little hiccup of pleasure as they slide across his prostate.  
  
"I'm sure," he says. "I'm sure, Harry, and if it's all right by you I'd really love for you to fuck me now."  
  
"My pleasure," Harry says, leaning down to bite gently at Louis' shoulder before slicking himself up. Louis watches him, and he tries to process the thought that he's about to have Harry inside him again. It feels like nothing could prepare him for this, but he's never been more ready for anything.  
  
"Go slow, yeah?" Louis says, wrapping his legs loosely around Harry's waist. "It's been a while." Harry nods, stroking Louis' knee gently before starting to push inside.  
  
Louis' already sensitive, and he hisses out a breath at the stretch as the head slips inside. "Okay?" Harry says, stilling, and Louis nods with his eyes closed.  
  
"Okay, just—it's a lot," he says, and he doesn't just mean the way Harry feels inside him. It's all of it, the sudden influx of Harry back into his life after not having any of him at all, the way he feels like he's overdosing on every good thing it's possible to feel.  
  
Harry reaches down and grabs his hand, lifting it to his mouth to press a kiss to the centre of Louis' palm. "We can stop if you want," he says, and Louis has to open his eyes to see the look on his face, all genuine concern.  
  
"No," Louis says, "No, I want this." He pulls his feet in where they're hooked behind Harry's back, pushing him in just a little deeper. "I want you. Just—slow, Haz, yeah?"  
  
"Yeah," Harry says shakily, leaning forward to kiss along Louis' collarbone. "I've got you," he says, pulling one arm back to stroke at Louis' cock, which had softened a little at the burn. Harry's touch, though, has him heavy and full again within minutes. Soon he's gasping at the way Harry's slowly rocking them together, pushing inside bit by tiny bit as he sucks on Louis' neck.  
  
Finally, finally, after what feels like an eternity, Harry is all the way inside, any pain a memory that seems increasingly distant. Louis is ready, wants more, so he scratches his nails down Harry's back lightly. "You can fuck me properly now," he says weakly. "If you'd like. No rush."  
  
Harry leans back up, bracing his weight on his free hand, and looks down at him. It's been an effort for him to hold back, Louis can see it in the sheen of sweat that covers his chest and the slight tremor in his arms. "No rush?" he says, and apparently he's willing to hold off longer if it means he gets to tease Louis more, all mock serious like he can't see the way Louis' cock is leaking all over his hand as he strokes it leisurely.  
  
"In your own time," Louis replies, playing it off like his voice doesn't crack in the middle. Harry grins, and Louis thinks for a moment that he's going to oblige him, but instead he takes one hand off Louis' cock—the  _bastard_ —and moves it to Louis' left nipple, pinching it hard as he leans down to bite at the other one.  
  
Louis fucking squeaks at that, and it's not particularly manly but he doesn't have enough brain cells to spare to care about it when there's heat rushing down his spine like that. He writhes down against Harry's cock, trying to pull more of it inside, but there isn't any more to be had, just a maddening thick pressure inside him that won't fucking  _move_.  
  
Harry's still got a mouth on his nipple, so Louis grabs a handful of his hair and pulls him back, hard. He's momentarily distracted by the way that makes Harry's pupils blow wide, the slick red openness of his mouth, the curve of his neck to where Louis is pulling his head back, but there are more urgent matters at hand.  
  
"Fuck me," Louis says, leaning up to suck at Harry's lower lip, because, okay, it really is very distracting. He bites down on it, pulling a groan from Harry, and then lets go. "Now. Please."  
  
Harry nods, mouth still open and obscene, and Louis was planning to let go of his hair, but when Harry slides almost all of the way out and then  _slams_  back into him Louis needs something to hold onto as he drops his head back against the mattress and sees stars.  
  
"Oh, God," Louis moans, and Harry drops onto his forearms to lick at the sweat in the hollow of his throat. He keeps fucking into Louis, setting a pace that isn't fast but hard and deep, every thrust lifting Louis' hips slightly up off the pillow and pulling whines from his throat. God, sometimes Louis thought he had been misremembering how good they were together, had been exaggerating it in his mind, but no, they work this fucking well. They belong together this much.  
  
The way Harry is moving is steady and intense and has Louis slightly unsure if he's breathing or not. Harry keeps driving in, and eventually he shifts angle just slightly and there are fireworks going off at the base of Louis' spine. "There, Hazza, Jesus  _fuck_ ," he grinds out, clenching around him, and suddenly Harry is going double-time and hitting that angle every single time.  
  
Louis' brain short-circuits, and he holds onto Harry's hair for dear life, pulling hard enough to hurt. He's babbling nonsense again, he knows, but this time he registers a few of the words. One of them that slips out is  _mine_ , and Harry's head snaps up at it, his rhythm stuttering a little before he picks it back up.  
  
"Mine," Louis says again, torn apart by the way it makes Harry's shoulders shake. "You're mine," he says, voice only breaking a little, and Harry leans down to drop his forehead against Louis'. He is, he is, this beautiful impossible human belongs to Louis, and Louis isn't ever going to fail to appreciate that ever again.  
  
"I'm close, Lou," Harry pants out against Louis' mouth, eyes closed. Louis can't help but tilt his chin up and capture his mouth in a kiss that's surprisingly gentle, given the way Harry is still pounding into him, but it feels right, feels like everything in him wants to take care of Harry, to keep him safe.  
  
Harry groans into the kiss, and then slips an arm under Louis' waist and rolls them onto their sides, hiking one of Louis' legs up around his waist and pulling him impossibly close, chest-to-chest. The angle is different but still good, not as deep but dragging insistently inside Louis in a way that starts a buzzing in his spine as Harry rocks into him.  
  
"M'gonna come," Harry pants, and then drops his hand from Louis' leg to slip it in between their bodies, finding Louis' cock and stripping it fast. He's so close to him that Louis can feel his breath on his face when he speaks. "I need--with me, Louis, I'm so close and I need to make you--" he trails off, chest heaving and eyes staring desperately into Louis'. Louis nods, and it's not far off now as it is anyway.  
  
Louis means to reassure Harry, to tell him that he wants to come, has wanted to make him come since he walked into the photography studio and wants to come with him, but when he opens his mouth what comes out instead is, "I love you."  
  
Harry's eyes fly open, unimaginably green up close. "Say it again," he says weakly.  
  
"I love you," Louis says, loosening his still-tight hold in Harry's hair and petting at it distractedly instead. He's amazed that he even has to say it, feels like it's blazing from his eyes, like it's seeping from his skin, like the fact that he loves Harry can be seen from space.  
  
Eyes squeezing closed, Harry lets out a fragile sound, his rhythm faltering again. His hand is still sure on Louis' cock, though, and Louis can feel sparks rising behind his eyes.  
  
Louis presses kisses to his chin, his cheekbones, his eyelids. "I love you," he says again, and he doesn't think he's crying but there's a lump in his throat.  
  
Harry shudders and groans one last time, and Louis feels him come hot and pulsing inside him, and the realisation that hearing the words  _I love you_  from his mouth just made Harry come sends Louis over the edge too, shaking through it with his hands on Harry's face. Harry collapses next to him, his arm sliding underneath Louis' waist to hold him as close as he can, and all Louis can do is bury a shout in Harry's shoulder and wait out the aftershocks.  
  
As they fade, Louis realises he's still talking, mumbling "I love you, I love you, you're mine and I love you," into Harry's sweaty hair, "I love you, I'm never going to leave you, I love you," desperate to put his hands everywhere and prove it to Harry.  
  
"Lou," Harry gasps, and his body seizes up again in Louis' arms.  
  
"You've got me, you've got me," Louis says, nuzzling up under Harry's chin and keeping his legs tight around his waist.  
  
"I love you, too," Harry says in a ruined voice, and Louis has never believed someone so much in his life.  
  
They stay like that for what feels like forever, completely spent and unable to move. Louis can feel Harry shaking in little erratic bursts, and he doesn't know if he's crying or still feeling it, or if it's both. He rubs his hands up and down Harry's back, lets the sweat gather up in his palms, and the only thought in his mind that makes any sense is the thing he's said a thousand times today, the thing he's been thinking and not saying for a year.  
  
After a few more minutes of soft touches and softer words, Louis disentangles himself and walks on shaky legs to Harry's bathroom to get a wet flannel. When he returns, he cleans Harry off first, delicately wiping across his flushed forehead and neck before taking care of himself. By the time he's done he can barely move, and Harry is laid out flat on the destroyed sheets, eyes glazing over.  
  
Louis tosses the flannel in the direction Harry threw his shoes and curls up beside him, pulling the sheets up over them and tucking himself in against Harry's chest. He's exhausted, and it's not just because of the sex. Louis Tomlinson has had a big day.  
  
He feels one of Harry's arms wrap around his waist, and he wills himself not to relax into it immediately and drift off quite yet. His head is a mess of post-sex haze, but he's got one last thing to say.  
  
"Harry," he says. "Don't fall asleep yet."  
  
"Mmm?" Harry grunts.  
  
"Just one more thing," Louis tells him. "When we wake up, we're talking. Okay?"  
  
"Okay," Harry agrees sleepily.  
  
"I mean it," Louis says, poking Harry in the ribs. "We're going to talk about this, and don't you dare leave this bed until we have."  
  
"Okay, okay," Harry says with a laugh in his voice.  
  
"Okay," Louis concludes, satisfied. And then, because he can, and because it's not just something he feels during sex and he needs Harry to know that, he adds, "I love you. Again."  
  
Harry turns onto his side a bit, facing Louis and ducking his head to bump their noses together. "Well," he says, stifling a yawn. "I love you, too. I did before, and I do now, and I will when we wake up. And most likely while we're asleep as well. So, there."  
  
"I'll take it," Louis says, and he kisses Harry goodnight.

✖

  
  
For a few disorienting moments before Louis opens his eyes, he thinks he's back in January the first time he slept over at Harry's flat in Manchester, Harry's body spooned up against him and his fingers grazing the floor where his arm is hanging off the mattress. It's not surprising. He's had this dream before, come back to this place in his head more times than he can count. He'll wake up soon and it'll all be over, and he'll go back to missing Harry.  
  
Then he feels Harry stroking his hair, and the memories of the last twelve hours of his life come churning back to him. He opens his eyes, and it's dark outside instead of the soft morning light of his memory, and when he rolls over Harry's there, real and warm and looking at him fondly.  
  
"S'you," Louis says blearily, blinking into wakefulness and nosing against Harry's neck.  
  
"Hey, love," Harry says, speaking softly as he accepts Louis' kiss on the side of his jaw. "I know I'm supposed to stay in the bed, but I've been waiting for you to wake up for half an hour and I've really got to wee."  
  
Louis laughs sleepily, rubbing his nose against Harry's shoulder. "How romantic."  
  
"I try," Harry says. He squeezes Louis' hip and then rolls out of bed and pads to the toilet, naked as the day he was born.  
  
Louis lies there, staring at Harry's unpacked boxes and blank walls, and has never felt happier in his entire idiot life. He lets the day come back slowly, watches it play out all over again in his half-asleep brain. There were so many ways this could have gone, but it went this one. For once, when it really mattered, things went right.  
  
After a moment he calls out after Harry. "Time is it, Hazza?"  
  
"Bout half ten at night," Harry says. "We passed out. I'm going to shower, you want to join?"  
  
"Be right there," Louis says, stretching before he rolls off of the mattress and follows Harry into the bathroom.  
  
They brush their teeth to get rid of the taste of sleep, bumping shoulders and jostling for space in the mirror, and then kiss lazily in Harry's unbelievably tiny shower, hands slippery as they rediscover bruises they left earlier. Louis exalts in the feeling of not agonizing over things before he does them, of not second-guessing himself every thirty seconds. When he wants to rest his head against the damp skin between Harry's shoulder blades, he does it. And when he wants to roll up his towel and snap it at Harry's arse, he does that too, because he might be changing but he hasn't changed that much.  
  
"Cheeky," Harry says, rubbing where the towel hit him. "I'm hungry, do you want food?" Louis stomach rumbles, answering for him.  
  
Harry rummages through his clothes and gives Louis a pair of football shorts and a worn cotton t-shirt, categorically refusing to give him any pants. Louis starts tickling him as punishment, and then Harry grabs his wrists, and they end up kissing for twenty more minutes on top of Harry's clean laundry. Finally, he lets Harry up, and they end up in Harry's kitchen—or what passes for a kitchen, anyway—staring into his refrigerator.  
  
"Why don't you have any food?" Louis asks, incredulous. "What do you live on?"  
  
"I guess I haven't been cooking as much," Harry says, scratching his head. "Haven't had the time. Been ordering in a lot." He reaches into the bottom shelf and pulls out a cardboard box. "Cold pizza?" he offers with a grin.  
  
So that's their midnight breakfast, cold pizza right out of the box with their bare feet entangled under Harry's table. They chew in contented silence, Harry occasionally reaching across to steal Louis' crusts and munch on them. Louis looks at him, shirtless with a little bit of sauce on his chin, and thinks, safe.  
  
He clears his throat a little awkwardly, and Harry looks up. "So," Louis says, kicking lightly against Harry's shins. "We should talk, yes?"  
  
Harry swallows and nods, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah, I think—I think that would be good," he says. "I mean, I have questions, but—"  
  
"That's okay, you should have questions, I—"  
  
"No, but, I just want to say," Harry pauses, picking his words carefully. "I want to be with you. That's not gonna change, no matter what you say. I have questions because, because I want us to figure out how to be together right this time. So, I guess, I just want you to know that anything you want to tell me, you can."  
  
Louis reaches across the table and takes his hand, because what else can he do? "Okay," he says. "Thank you. And just to be clear, I want to be with you, too. I'm sure I said something like that yesterday, but. In case you forgot."  
  
Harry grins. "I didn't forget."  
  
Ducking his head, Louis squeezes his hand. "All right. Good. So, um. Do you want to just ask me things? Because I'm honestly not sure where to start."  
  
"Okay," Harry says, taking a deep breath. "Did you want me to stay in Manchester?"  
  
"Yes," Louis says, amazed he even has to ask.  
  
Harry blinks a couple of times but doesn't look away. "Why didn't you ask me to?"  
  
"Because," Louis says, sighing, "I thought you wanted to be here, that it would make you happy. I thought that if you wanted to stay, you would. I didn't think there was anything I could offer you to convince you to stay if you wanted to go."  
  
This time Harry reaches across the table, taking Louis' other hand in his. "Louis, I don't—"  
  
"It's all right," Louis says. "I don't—that's not what I believe anymore. Not really. But you need to know what I was thinking then."  
  
Harry nods, but he still looks stricken. "That makes sense. Can you—do you want to ask me stuff, too? I don't want this to be an interrogation."  
  
Louis had prepared to answer for everything he'd done, but he hadn't thought about questioning Harry in return. Now that he thinks of it, though, there are some gaps he'd like filled. "Why didn't you tell me you were applying for the internship?"  
  
"Yeah, that was my fault," Harry says, hanging his head. "I fucked that up. I never told you I was applying because it was in the middle of the musical and you were about to work yourself to death, and I didn't want to stress you out more, but I shouldn't have blindsided you with it. I should have at least waited until after the cast party to tell you, Jesus Christ."  
  
"Would've been nice," Louis says, raising an eyebrow. Harry laughs ruefully and continues.  
  
"You're right. I'm really sorry about that, I couldn't have handled it worse. I guess I just didn't realise how upset you'd be? I honestly never thought I'd be going to London without you, or at least without trying to do long-distance, so I hadn't been thinking of it as a bad thing for us. It was such a long shot anyway that I never thought about the details until I actually got it, and then I just assumed you would come with me."  
  
"You thought I was going to move to London with you?" Louis says, incredulous. "Harry, I love you, but my life is in Manchester. Even if I did move, God, that would be such a big decision."  
  
Harry grimaces. "I know, I know. God, I—you were right about me, you know? I've had it really easy, and I've always sort of just been able to do the things that I wanted. And I never stayed in one place that long, so I didn't even really think of it as a huge deal. I wanted you, I wanted the job, and I thought I could have both because I don't really hear ‘No' that often." He looks ashamed of himself, but Louis just wants to hold him and tell him that it's okay to be young.  
  
"It's all right," Louis says. "I mean, it's completely insane, but it's kind of sweet, too, I guess. That you thought of me as that permanent." Harry gives him a small smile, looking up at him through his fringe, and okay. This is going all right. No urge to make an escape through a window yet. "Your turn."  
  
Nodding, Harry hooks his ankle behind Louis' under the table. "After I got the internship," he says, trailing off. "Can you—why wouldn't you talk to me? Why did you just—it was like you vanished, like we were together and then we weren't. Even if you weren't going to ask me to stay, why did you shut me out?"  
  
There it is. The big one, or one of them, anyway. Louis takes a moment to collect his thoughts, and then starts to speak, squeezing Harry's hands tight and staring down at the table. Harry deserves to know, and Louis deserves to be able to come clean.  
  
"I was pushing you away because I didn't think I deserved you. I didn't think you needed me." Harry takes a breath like he's going to speak, but Louis keeps going. He needs to know. "Haz, you're brilliant, and you're talented, and you make everyone love you, and it just—it made sense that you would leave me. Nearly everyone leaves me eventually, been that way my whole life, and I couldn't see why you would be any different."  
  
He takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what he's about to drop on Harry. "I was going to tell you I loved you the night you got the internship. Well, I don't know if I would have said the word ‘love,' but I was going to tell you that I was ready to be with you for real. And then you told me about the internship, and I realised how vulnerable I had made myself to you, and I felt like an idiot. I thought you wanted to leave me, or at least that you wanted something so much bigger than me that I didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I thought, if you were going to be okay without me, I needed to do what I could to protect myself. And I thought that if I could just downplay whatever was between us, if I could make it into something that wasn't important, then the end wouldn't hurt so much." He takes a shaking breath. "I thought, since you were leaving me, I had to leave you first. Except I couldn't, not really, couldn't stay away, so I had to at least act like it didn't matter. Because I thought I didn't matter to you."  
  
There's a silence, and then Harry says, "You always mattered to me." Louis looks up at the sound of his voice and sees that Harry has tears in his eyes. "Lou, you were what mattered the most, you—you were it, God, I'm so sorry you didn't know that." He shakes his head suddenly, like he needs to clear it. "I'm not sure I'll ever stop being sorry for that."  
  
"Harry, it's not your fault that I'm like this," Louis says, suddenly not caring about anything but the fact that he's made Harry cry. "It's not your fault that I'm fucked up and can't—"  
  
"Shut up, Louis," Harry says, and then lets out a little laugh. "Nothing could make me feel worse than you putting yourself down right now, okay? Let me just—can I tell you? How I felt. Just, I want to explain."  
  
"Whatever you want, love," Louis says. Harry is still crying, still crying over him, and nothing else seems particularly important.  
  
"Okay," Harry says, sniffing a little."Just, first off, to make things clear, I was always in love with you. Always, Louis, since before I even kissed you. And I always knew that that was what it was, even though I'd never felt that way before. Never, Lou," he repeats, making eye contact. "But I also knew that, for whatever reason, you didn't want to hear it, or weren't ready to. You didn't seem interested in talking about what we were or how you felt. And I never wanted to force you into anything. I've always—I don't know, the relationships I'd had were all pretty casual, so I didn't really think defining what we were to each other was that important. And I thought I might risk losing whatever I had with you if I tried to have more than you were already offering, so I just kept my mouth shut and tried to be whatever you needed."  
  
"You were," Louis interrupts. "You were always there, it was—it drove me crazy, honestly," he says, laughing. "Because I was trying so hard not to be in love with you, and you made it so impossible."  
  
Harry's face breaks into a grin, and it's like the sun. "Deal with it, Tomlinson. I wanted you to be happy, whatever that took."  
  
"How very dare you," Louis says, running his thumb across the back of Harry's hand.  
  
"I'm very evil," Harry says solemnly. "But Louis, honestly, if I'd had any idea what you thought I would have told you. I just thought that we were good together, that we were working even if we weren't talking about it, so I thought the best thing was to just not say anything. I didn't want to overstep, I guess."  
  
"I get that," Louis says carefully. He has to try to figure out how to say in words things he's barely thought about for years, and he's not sure he's going to pull it off. "And I see how you thought you were looking out for me. Also since it hasn't been said in about ten minutes, I love you too." Harry smiles at him, and the tears are gone now, thank God. "But you've got to understand, Harry, with me, if you don't tell me what you're feeling, the conclusion I'm going to jump to is not going to be that you're in love with me, or that everything's fine. Do you get that? It's just not how my brain works."  
  
Harry nods, more serious now, and Louis breathes a little easier. "I'm starting to get it," he says. "And Zayn yelled at me a bit about it, too, which helped." Louis makes a mental note to both smack and thank Zayn. "I wish—I hope someday you can tell me why, though? If you feel like you can share that with me?"  
  
"I want to," Louis says. "It's been a long time since I've talked about some stuff, and I want to tell you. And Zayn, too, but you first. Just—maybe not this conversation? But soon?" Another nod, and Louis feels another weight lift. "And I want you to know I've been working on it, on trying to get to a place where I don't always assume the worst case scenario. On trusting the people I love, and who love me. I really have, and I think I can get there eventually? But if we're together—and I want that, Harry, I want that more than anything—then you have to meet me halfway. I'm not, like, magically okay now that I have you back, even though it helps. Even though it helps a lot."  
  
"I want to be with you, too, just as you are," Harry says, brow furrowing a little. "I'm not asking you to change for me."  
  
"No, you're not," Louis says. "I'm trying to change myself, to be more like who I want to be. Who I was, once, honestly. And I'm doing it for me, Haz, not you." He grins slyly. "What was it you said yesterday? 'Not everything's about you?'"  
  
Harry kicks him under the table. "Wanker."  
  
Louis kicks back before he continues. "I mean it, though. Me coming here—me coming to find you—that's a part of me getting better, not the purpose for it, yeah? And honestly, Harry, I'm glad you say that you'd have told me how you felt months ago if you'd known what was going in my head. But I probably wouldn't have been ready to hear it, really. I wouldn't have known what to do with it, or how to trust you. I wouldn't have believed you."  
  
"I'm sorry," Harry says, and Louis just shrugs.  
  
"Got nothing to do with you, really. Was always going to be like that until I started actually, I don't know, taking care of myself. And I am, I'm taking care of myself, more than I ever was when you were in Manchester."  
  
"That makes me happy," Harry says. "Really happy, Lou. And I hope—I want to be part of how you take care of yourself, if that makes sense."  
  
"You are," Louis says. "I wouldn't be here if you weren't. I couldn't be here if I weren't working on being—I don't know, a healthier person? A more whole person? I sound like a twat, but that's what I want to be. Whole. Even if that sounds like bullshit."  
  
"Doesn't sound like bullshit to me," Harry says softly.  
  
"Yeah, well, it wouldn't to you, would it?" Louis laughs. "Sentimental bastard."  
  
"You love it."  
  
"I love you. And I love that you support my weird self-actualization quest, or whatever the hell it is," Louis says. "But it's going to take some time for me to get there, and until I do, you need to understand some stuff about me. Like, okay, you didn't push me to talk about our relationship because you didn't want to pressure me into anything I didn't want, right?"  
  
Harry nods seriously, and Louis loves him for the mental notes he knows he's taking in his head. "Well, with me, part of not forcing me into anything is making sure I know exactly what's going on inside your head, so I can make decisions based on reality, and not just my own screwed-up assumptions. So if you want something from me, or aren't happy, or are confused, I need you to tell me, even if it isn't your first instinct. Even if you think it isn't a big deal. Because otherwise I'll make up my own story to explain what I think is going on, and it probably won't be anything good."  
  
"Okay," Harry says, squeezing Louis' hand. "I can do that. I promise I can do that."  
  
"I know you can," Louis says. "And I promise that if I catch myself making mountains out of molehills, I'll sit down and ask you what's going on instead of jumping to conclusions. I just can't promise that I'll always be able to catch myself."  
  
"I can live with that," Harry says, nodding solemnly before cracking a smile. "I'd love to live with that." Louis smiles back, and they stay like that for a while, sitting in silence with their hands connected across the table. The pizza is long since forgotten, already cold and going colder.  
  
Louis feels a bit strange, sort of like he has nothing to do. Obviously, he knows that's not really true. He needs to make sure that leaving work yesterday hasn't landed him in hot water, and he needs to call Zayn, and he needs to start reorganizing large parts of his life around the fact that part of his heart is going to spend the next few months in London. But—these are things he will do, he knows he will, somehow, and that's new. All those things are just items on a to-do list. None of them are those lurking, choking worries that clog his throat and fog his brain, the ones that follow him for months and abscess and grind down his teeth. He doesn't seem to have any of those at all right now, and that's new too.  
  
"Can I ask something else?" Harry says softly, bringing Louis back to the present. He just cocks his head in response, waiting for the question. "Why now?" Harry asks. "I mean—why was it today?"  
  
Shrugging a little, Louis tries to figure out how to explain a chain of events he doesn't fully understand himself. "Stuart Standhill and Mike Kendall are dating," is what he comes out with, which is as good a place to start as any.  
  
Harry's jaw honest-to-God drops. "You're shitting me," he says. "Stuart, he finally—with  _Mike_? With  _my_  Mike?"  
  
"I know," Louis says. "Believe me, I know. Stuart came to me over the summer—I was doing these lesson things, I'll tell you later—and told me the whole thing. Before he told almost anybody else."  
  
"Holy  _shit_ ," Harry says, apparently having lost access to all non-profane vocabulary. "Louis, that's—"  
  
"I know," Louis says again, interrupting, because if he hears Harry say any of the things Louis imagined he might in the depths of his weakest nights he probably will start crying. "They're public, too, the whole school knows. And they're making it work, they really are. Despite everything. They really love each other, and it doesn't matter who knows or what they think. And—and Stuart wanted me to know first."  
  
Harry brings one of Louis' hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the knuckles. "Louis," he says simply, and Louis can't imagine how someone can fit so many things into any name, much less his.  
  
"And there was this stuff with Niall, too, impossible stuff that you wouldn't believe if I told you. But that was weeks ago, almost months," he says, focusing on the story at hand and not the reverent way Harry's lips had brushed his skin. "Today it was Liam." Harry's brow furrows in confusion, and Louis can't blame him. "Right? Liam Payne of all people. Came to talk to me about something totally different, of course, basically apologising to me for my own shit attitude, but in typical handyman fashion ended up finding a whole different problem to fix."  
  
"What did he say?" Harry asks, leaning forward across the table. "Also, Zayn is going to shit himself."  
  
"Oh, I'm aware," Louis says, momentarily thrilled that no matter how serious the conversation, they'll always make time to take the piss out of Zayn. He's definitely in love. "He basically just told me about how they got together, and how sure he had been that Zayn wasn't interested. Zayn! Uninterested in Liam! And I kept thinking the whole time, like, God, how could one person have been so completely wrong about what's going on? How could he have been so certain, and so dumb?"  
  
"Think I might see where this one is going, now."  
  
Louis lets go of one of Harry's hands to swat at him, but then grabs it back, pressing his thumb into the soft flesh of Harry's palm. "It was like a bunch of different things sort of lined up together, I guess. Because if love was real and worthwhile, and impossible things could happen, and people could be that utterly, irredeemably wrong, then maybe—then maybe I didn't have anything to lose by telling you how I felt. Maybe there as a chance that I'd been wrong, too."  
  
After a moment, Harry clears his throat. "Well. Remind me to thank Liam. And Niall. And Mike and Stuart."  
  
Raising his eyebrows, Louis says, "It takes a village, apparently." Harry barks a laugh, and then falls silent, looking at Louis across the table with his head tilted to the side before opening his mouth.  
  
"Can I ask you one more thing?"  
  
"Of course," Louis says. He's exhausted, but he'll stay up all night if that's what Harry needs.  
  
"Can I call you my boyfriend?" Harry asks, almost shy and definitely sheepish, but smiling nonetheless.  
  
It's a simple question, but it makes all of what's been said in the past half an hour wash over Louis in a wave, overwhelming him for a moment, and when it passes what's left is amazement at how much love he can feel for one other person. One person has just heard some of his darkest thoughts, some of the petty and childish insecurities he's been most ashamed of, the things he'd always thought would make anybody with half a brain cut their losses and move on, and after hearing all that, this person is asking him permission to publicly lay claim to him. Unbelievable.  
  
"Yeah," Louis says in a small voice. "Yeah, I'd like that a lot."  
  
"Okay," Harry says, and his grin is splitting his face in half. "That's—yeah, I just, that's brilliant. I mean, I always—"  
  
"Me too," Louis interrupts. "Always, I mean. Me too. The whole time."  
  
"Good," Harry says. "Great."  
  
They sit beaming at each other across the table for a moment, and then Louis feels the adrenaline of the conversation start to slowly drain out of him. His fight-or-flight instinct has been wailing at the back of his brain the whole time, and suppressing it has left him fucking exhausted. It's a good kind of tired, though, like after a long run or spending the day on the beach or a lot of athletic sex. Which actually happened just a couple of hours ago, now that Louis thinks of it, so no wonder he's tired.  
  
"Hazza," he says, stifling a yawn. "Can we—I mean, unless you have more questions, but—I think I'd like to go back to bed? I promise we can keep talking tomorrow, I'm just completely wrung out."  
  
Harry's eyes are soft, and he nods. "Yeah, love, I'm tired too."  
  
He shuffles up from the table, taking Louis' hand and tugging him up too and leaving the pizza box on the table behind them. Harry pulls the chain on the little lamp balanced on a crate near his bed and the room goes dark and Louis can do nothing but follow blindly as Harry leads him toward the mattress, trusting that Harry won't let anything happen to him.  
  
Somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks that maybe they should brush their teeth again, but the idea of doing anything but curling into Harry's body heat seems unimaginably difficult, so when Harry pulls him down and kisses him lightly, Louis follows, sighing softly into the kiss before tucking his head against Harry's chest.  
  
"I feel loads better now," Louis says. "Even though it's arse o'clock in the morning and my sleep schedule is going to be totally fucked."  
  
"Totally fucked indeed," Harry says in his lewdest voice. Louis elbows him in the stomach.  
  
"Is nothing sacred to you?" Louis says, mock appalled.  
  
"Only your dick," Harry tells him. He pauses a moment. "And your arse. And mouth. The holy trinity."  
  
Louis can't keep himself from cracking up at that, even though it's such typical, terrible, crude Harry humour. Or perhaps because it is. "Love you," he says, and that still somehow hasn't gotten old.  
  
He feels Harry's echo rumble in his chest, and feels very much at peace.

 

**Chapter 22.**

Louis hates mornings. He  _hates_  them. He hates having to drag himself out the warmth of his bed and pretend to be happy about it, hates how bright the lights of his kitchen always seem when he's making his first cup of tea, hates having to deal with traffic on the way to work. Once for a project in uni he wrote an entire five hundred word monologue on how much he hated mornings, in iambic pentameter. If there were an organization against mornings, Zayn would probably have to fight him for presidency.  
  
He thinks, as he slowly blinks awake to the sight of Harry lying next to him again, that maybe he could be persuaded to change his stance on the issue.  
  
"Good morning," Harry says.  
  
"It is, isn't it?" Louis says, smiling. He noses down into the pillow, feeling the warmth of the way Harry's looking at him just as much as he feels the blanket tucked around his shoulders. Harry drops a kiss on the top of his head and folds Louis in closer to his chest. Louis thinks he could probably stay like this forever.  
  
The thing is, though, he can't. The warmth, the fondness, Harry—that can all stay. That will stay for good if Louis has anything to say about it. But it's Saturday morning now and he has to deal with at least some of the other parts of his life before things get too out of hand.  
  
"You're thinking again," Harry says, and Louis can tell he's trying to stay light, but there's a little note of concern underneath it. It's going to take work to convince them both that this is for real, that they don't need to be afraid that every moment of hesitation is somebody about to cut and run.  
  
"It's okay," Louis says, leaning up to kiss Harry again. "Everything is still good. I'm just thinking that I really need to turn my phone back on."  
  
Harry groans a little. "Do you  _have_  to?" He pouts at Louis, tracing his fingers over the curve of Louis' hip.  
  
"As much as I would like to do this for a living," Louis says, reaching down to palm the back of Harry's hand, "I do have an actual job I need to see about. Your arse does not offer health benefits."  
  
Harry grins wolfishly, squeezing a little. "I have been reliably informed otherwise."  
  
Louis rolls his eyes. "Hush," he says, rolling out of Harry's octopus arms. His bag is slouched in the corner, exactly where it's been since he shrugged it off and kicked it out of the way last night. So far away. "It'll only take a minute."  
  
Harry makes a grumpy face at him but relents, and Louis gets to his feet and pads over to his bag. He fishes his phone out of the bottom and wanders back over to the mattress.  
  
"I kind of left in the middle of work and didn't bother to find a replacement, so I'm not really sure what to expect," Louis says. He sits back down at Harry's side and stares down at his phone, bracing himself for what might be waiting for him on it.  
  
Harry grins, leaning his head against Louis' knee. "You know, for somebody who hates romantic comedies, you're kind of living one."  
  
"I don't hate them so much anymore," Louis admits. He catches the grin spreading across Harry's face. "Oi, don't look so pleased with yourself, you little shit."  
  
"To me you are perfect," Harry says without a trace of irony, and God, Louis would smack him if he could stop feeling so stupidly lovesick for more than five seconds.  
  
"Quit distracting me," he says. He takes a deep breath and powers up his phone.  
  
Thirty-six. He has thirty-six missed calls from Zayn.  
  
There are several text messages too, most of which he imagines are also from Zayn, demanding answers in all capital letters and lots of angry emoticons, but he doesn't have time to go through them all. Louis should probably call him now before he goes into cardiac arrest, if he hasn't already. It's hardly nine in the morning according to the clock on his phone, and historically that would have meant Zayn was nowhere near the realm of the living on a weekend, but Liam's an early riser and it's starting to rub off on Zayn. Louis figures he'll probably be up by now. He shows Harry the missed calls, snickering, and then calls Zayn back, switching the phone to speaker and putting it down on the pillow between them. It rings only once before Zayn picks up.  
  
"About fucking time you called me back, arsehole!" Zayn shouts down the line immediately. "Where are you? I have been off my fucking head since yesterday, I swear to—" Louis can't keep a straight face anymore, and when he starts laughing Harry does too. Zayn's voice shoots up an octave. " _Is that Harry?_ "  
  
That sets them off again, and it's upwards of thirty seconds before either of them can catch their breath long enough to answer. "Hi, Zayn," Harry finally says, smirking like a kid caught with his hand in a jar of sweets and feeling pretty pleased with himself for getting there. He sticks his tongue out at Louis, and Louis wants to kiss him all over his big dumb beautiful face.  
  
"Oh my fucking God," Zayn says. "Oh my God. Are you two—Louis—did you—explain! Explain yourselves, Jesus Christ, please. My heart can't take the suspense."  
  
Louis looks at Harry, who just nods silently, letting him take the lead.  
  
"Well, darling," Louis says. "Your mum and dad are getting back together."  
  
" _Don't fuck about, Louis!_ " Zayn shouts so loud and so shrill that Louis' speakers buzz tinnily.  
  
"I'm not, babe," Louis says, still laughing. "I'm in London, with Harry, and we're, um, together now. Or again. Whatever, we're together. Properly."  
  
There's a moment of stunned silence, until Zayn recovers his wits. "What happened?" he demands frantically. "Oh my God, tell me everything, Louis, right now, I'm going to fucking kill you for making me wait."  
  
Louis can't help but cackle just a little at that, because, well, torturing Zayn is great and he's happy and everything in his life is wonderful right now. "I imagine Liam told you about our conversation, yes?" he says.  
  
"Of course," Zayn says, because they probably have developed two-person true love telepathy by this point. "By the way, he stopped by the school office and told them that you'd started suddenly projectile vomiting and had to go to hospital, so you owe him."  
  
"I owe him double, actually," Louis says, letting out the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding to hear that he wasn't going home unemployed. "That whole conversation we had, about the two of you, well, I just kind of—took it to heart a bit. Decided to do something about it."  
  
"And by that he means he turned up at the studio where I work and told me that he loved me," Harry chimes in.  
  
Another moment of silence, and then there's the muffled sound of Zayn screaming into something, probably a pillow or his own hand. Louis slaps a hand over his face. His best friend, despite everyone's insistence on calling him "mysterious," has the emotional control of a thirteen-year-old. Harry's grinning like an idiot, and Louis feels loved all at once in so many different ways.  
  
"Yeah, um, we talked it all out last night, and it's all right now," he goes on over the sounds of Zayn having a fit on the other end of the phone. He's fiddling with Harry's hair as he talks, pushing it off of his face, and Harry mouths  _I love you_  at him. "Are you okay there, Zayn?"  
  
There's a pause, and when Zayn finally speaks again, his voice is thick. "I'm just really happy for the two of you. I love you both so much."  
  
"Zayn..." Louis says. "Are you gonna cry?" It's becoming increasingly likely that Louis actually died yesterday and the events of the past twenty-four hours are actually just his reward in heaven.  
  
" _Shut up!_ " Zayn says petulantly, trying and failing to hide the sound of sniffing. "You don't know what it's been like! You two are absolute shitheads, and I've had to deal with it, and now it's done. These are tears of purely selfish joy and relief."  
  
"Deep breaths, Zayn," Harry says, amused and fond. "Hey, is Liam there?"  
  
"He's in the shower," Zayn tells him, perking right up.  
  
"Promise me you'll thank him for me?" Harry says. "With blowjobs. But also with words."  
  
"Oh, that has been taken care of," Zayn says. "Trust me. ‘Spose it couldn't hurt to double-check, though. You know, just in case," and Louis can hear his smirk over the phone.  
  
"Okay, Zayn, you do that," Louis pops in. "I love you, but I'd like Harry to myself now."  
  
"I bet you do," Zayn says, and Louis doesn't have to see him to be able to picture the ridiculous, cartoonishly suggestive thing he's probably doing with his eyebrows right now.  
  
"Yes, exactly," Louis says.  
  
"Wait, Lou, before you go..." Zayn says just as Louis is reaching for the phone.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"I just, I'm really proud of you, Lou," Zayn tells him, his tone serious. "I want you to know that."  
  
Louis feels something warm in his chest spreading out to the ends of his fingers, and he's glad Zayn isn't here to take the piss for the look on his face right now. Harry squeezes his hand, and Louis clears his throat a little before responding. "Thanks, Zayn."  
  
"Now take care of each other, or I'll kill you both," Zayn says. "I mean it, I'm not dealing with this again."  
  
"Got it," Louis laughs. "Bye, babe."  
  
"Bye!" Harry chips in. Zayn tells them both goodbye and hangs up, and Louis is left alone with Harry again.  
  
"Idiot," Louis says fondly, moving his phone to the floor.  
  
"Which one of us?" Harry asks.  
  
"Both," Louis says, smiling a little despite himself. He pokes at Harry's chest. "You're just my idiot with benefits."  
  
He lets Harry gather him up into a grinning kiss, warm and soft in slept-in clothes and messy sheets. He still hasn't gotten over how good it feels to kiss him again, or how much better it is now, now that he doesn't have to worry about holding anything back.  
  
After a little while the kissing slides into just holding each other, faces close and legs tangled together, and Louis loves this too, loves being able to be as gentle as he wants without having to justify or hide anything. He's not so used to it yet that it doesn't feel like he's getting away with something.  
  
"I missed you so much," Louis says.  
  
Harry's hands squeeze tighter around Louis' shirt, and he mumbles back, "Me too."  
  
Louis pulls back, feeling boneless and dizzy from having Harry so close and so vulnerable. "Wanna know what I missed the most?"  
  
"Sure," Harry tells him.  
  
He brings one of Harry's hands up to his mouth, holding it open with both of his own. He presses a kiss to his palm, and then one of each of his fingertips, before turning it over and kissing each of his knuckles in turn.  
  
"I missed your hands," he says as he does this. "I missed your fingers. I missed your wrists."  
  
"That's more than one thing," Harry says softly.  
  
"I missed your smart mouth," Louis says, leaning up to kiss that too. He kisses Harry on the tip of his nose, on the underside of his chin, on the lids of his eyes. "I missed this. And this. And this."  
  
It goes on like that for hours, languid and lazy and endless kisses and Louis spreading Harry out naked and telling him exactly what he missed about every inch of his body. He spends ten minutes on Harry's stomach, telling him how much he missed balancing plates of takeaway on it when they were in bed and seeing the muscles there through his t-shirts and feeling it tense up against him when Harry was about to come. He spends another ten on Harry's thighs, pushing them apart and running his fingertips over every inch of them, kissing them up and down until Harry is trembling on the mattress. He bites on Harry's ear, licks the cut of his pelvis, kisses every single bruise he left on Harry's skin the night before. And he saves the tattoo for last, because it's his very favourite part.  
  
Harry rolls him over and returns the favour, telling Louis how he missed the crinkles by his eyes and shape of his biceps and curve of his arse. He spends five minutes complimenting the shape of his ankles, of all things, and then is delighted to discover Louis is ticklish there. He blows raspberries against the back of Louis' knees and whispers sweet nothings against his soft belly, and Louis isn't used to being complimented like this. Maybe six months ago the thought of being laid on his back in the morning light and listening to someone say lovely things about every part of his too-small, too-curvy, imperfect body would have sent him into a fit of anxiety, but today he can surrender to it. He accepts everything Harry has to give him, lets Harry touch him wherever he wants.  
  
They get each other off slowly, teasing up to it for a long time, touching with slick fingers and open mouths until it's too much. Finally, Louis gets Harry on his back and grinds down against him languidly, the two of them rubbing together filthily. The blush on Harry's face goes halfway down his chest, and he looks up at Louis glassy-eyed and grinning as he puts both his hands on Louis' arse and ruts against him. It's good, and it makes Louis laugh, which is even better, and when they eventually come they go over the ledge together, breathing hot into each other's mouths and spilling onto Harry's stomach.  
  
They lie there a moment, still touching each other softly like they both need to reassure themselves that the other is still there. "It's still fun, you know," Louis says into Harry's chest. Harry makes a little confused noise, and Louis clarifies. "Doing this with you. It's still fun. Always has been."  
  
"Yay," Harry says, in a tiny wrung-out voice, and Louis feels very pleased with himself indeed. Harry clumsily strokes Louis' hair, more patting at it than anything else, and Louis leans into it happily. Everything is fun with Harry. He wants to do everything with him.  
  
Suddenly, he thinks of something that they've never done. Something they need to do right now, and Louis thinks he owes it to Harry to do it the right way this time. He wants to show Harry he's in it for real this time around, and that starts at the beginning.  
  
"Need to wee," Louis says, climbing off of Harry's chest. "Back in a tick."  
  
He shuts the bathroom door behind him and counts to thirty in his head before he pulls out the phone he snuck in with him. Harry's name is long gone from his recent calls list so he has to dig him up out of his contacts, but he's still there, no matter how many times Louis considered deleting the number over the past few months.  
  
He hits send and soon Harry's phone is blasting Arcade Fire from the other side of the door while it rings a few times on Louis' end of the line. There's the sound of rustling sheets and the clink of Harry's belt against the floor—must have left it in his jeans—and then Harry picks up.  
  
"Hello?" Harry says, sounding bemused.  
  
"Hi, Harry," Louis says, chewing on his lip to keep the smile out of his voice a bit. "This is Louis Tomlinson, from work. You gave me your number?"  
  
There's a second or two of hesitation, but Harry catches on quickly enough. "Yeah, I remember," he says. "How are you?"  
  
"I'm great, thanks," Louis says. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. I should have called as soon as I got your number, but to be completely honest with you, I was a bit scared."  
  
"That's all right," Harry says gently.  
  
"Thanks," Louis says. He keeps his voice light and conversational, committing to the bit. "Anyway, I think you're quite charming, and I was wondering if you'd like to go out for lunch with me today?"  
  
He can feel Harry's grin through the phone, and he doesn't bother trying to contain his own anymore. "Are you asking me on a date?" Harry says.  
  
"Yes," Louis says. "I'd very much like to take you on a date, if you're interested."  
  
"That sounds brilliant, actually," Harry says.  
  
"Excellent," Louis says, surprised by the relief he feels at Harry's response even though he already knew what the answer would be. "Why don't I pick you up around one at yours, and we'll go somewhere together? You can pick the place, I'll treat."  
  
"Okay, I'll think of something," Harry says. "Can't wait."  
  
"Neither can I," Louis tells him, and he means it. "See you soon."  
  
He ends the call and leans back against the sink, giving it a minute before he goes back to Harry. He wonders if this is exactly how the conversation would have gone if he had actually done this, if he had just mustered up the nerve to ask Harry out properly when he first met him. It's funny, how the two of them keep doing this whole thing backwards. He figures it's probably a little fucked up that he had to go through this whole year before he finally got to the place where he can ask Harry out for lunch, but he's done beating himself up about it. It's just their weird, roundabout way of figuring out how to love each other, and maybe there's a lot he would change, but what matters is that they're here now. And God, do they deserve it.  
  
Harry's waiting on the other side of the bathroom door when he opens it, and he pulls Louis straight into a kiss.  
  
"You asked me on a date," he says, smiling against Louis' cheek.  
  
"Yes, I did," Louis says, trying not to sound overly satisfied with himself and failing miserably. He puts his hands on Harry's chest and pushes him back gently. "Which means you can't kiss me now, because it would be quite scandalous if we kissed before our first date."  
  
"Right," Harry says, schooling his face into a stern expression as he pulls back. "I shall not impugn your virtue."  
  
"Thank you very much," Louis says. Harry gives him a little salute, and Louis rolls his eyes.  
  
It's already noon, so they spend the next hour trying to make themselves presentable to go out in public. Louis didn't take the time to pack any actual clothes when he left Manchester, which means he's at the mercy of Harry's wardrobe. It's easy to share clothes with Harry when they're just dealing with joggers and t-shirts and things to laze about the flat in, but date clothes are a different animal, and Harry is shaped very differently than Louis is. Finding a jumper that fits him isn't terribly hard, and he ends up in a dark grey one that is only a little baggy on him and works fine as long as he pushes the sleeves up to keep them from covering his hands. Trousers are another matter, though, and he spends twenty minutes cursing Harry's skinny legs and love of tight jeans—a thing he never thought he'd have anything but utmost praises for—before he shimmies into a pair that fits once he cuffs them at the bottom.  
  
He kicks Harry out of the bathroom to fuss with his hair for a bit but gives up after a minute or two; if he's being honest, sex hair is not altogether that different from the way he styles it on a normal day anyway. Next it's a round of shaving his face and brushing his teeth and cleaning his glasses diligently before he's ready, giving himself an appreciative once-over in the mirror.  
  
"Voila," Louis says, exiting the bathroom with a flourish. He holds out his arms and does a spin, letting Harry see every inch of him. Harry's still only halfway dressed, but he stops in the middle of doing up his jeans to applaud.  
  
"You're gorgeous," Harry says.  
  
"Thanks, love," Louis says, taking a little bow. He doesn't know why he's blushing.  
  
"I like you in my clothes," Harry continues as he does up his fly, and Louis knows why he's blushing now.  
  
"Like me better out of them," he shoots back, because he's never one to be outdone in a battle of innuendo. "Are you almost ready?"  
  
"I would be, if somebody hadn't distracted me and then taken ages in the bathroom," Harry teases.  
  
"Whoever that person was, he sounds like a man who gets what he wants," Louis says.  
  
"Yeah," Harry says. "He is."  
  
Louis bites his lip, and Harry goes back to fastening his belt. He's no stranger to watching Harry get undressed, but it's less common for him to get a chance to watch Harry put clothes on. It feels quite domestic, watching Harry build himself up into what strangers get to see. Louis wonders if this is just one time of thousands to come, if he'll be lucky enough to get to watch Harry get dressed for the rest of their lives.  
  
That's a big thought to have before lunch, but Louis isn't afraid of it. He is, however, struck with another idea. He leans down and picks yesterday's trousers up off the floor, digging his wallet out of the pocket.  
  
"Haz," he says once he's pocketed his wallet again. "Stay here for a second."  
  
"What?" Harry says. He looks up and sees Louis crossing the room, reaching for the door. "Where are you going?"  
  
"Just trust me, yeah?" Louis says. "Stay here and finish getting ready."  
  
Harry looks confused but nods anyway, and Louis lets himself out and rides the lift down to the first floor. He sits on the front steps of the building for a few minutes, killing time, until he decides it's been long enough and stands to buzz Harry's flat.  
  
"Hello?" says Harry's voice over the scratchy intercom when he answers.  
  
"Hi, it's Louis," Louis says politely. "I'm here to pick you up for our date?"  
  
There's a pause on the other end, and Louis can picture the look on Harry's face, like he doesn't know where the hell somebody like Louis even came from but he's glad he did. It's a look Louis' seen many, many times. "I'll be right down," Harry says finally, and the intercom clicks off.  
  
A minute or so later, the front door of Harry's building opens and Harry steps out. He's looking rather fetching indeed, dark wash jeans and a soft cotton shirt under a leather jacket and a worn camera case over one shoulder, slim and lovely under what little sun London has to offer today. He's a stunner, and Louis feels incredibly smug that he's the only one who gets to walk around holding his hand.  
  
"You look great," Louis says, smiling as Harry meets him at the bottom of the steps.  
  
"Thanks," Harry says. "So do you."  
  
"Have you decided where you'd like to go?" Louis says.  
  
"Yeah, I have," Harry tells him. He reaches over and takes Louis' hand, slotting their fingers together, and as they turn together to make their way down the street, Louis realises it's the first time they've held hands in broad daylight.  
  
It's little revelations like this that are going to make this finally feel real. It's one thing to hear Harry say he wants to be with him and believe it, but it's another to experience what that means, to feel the solid ground of a real relationship under his feet. A long time ago, the Louis he used to be gave up on all the little trappings of being committed to somebody else, convinced himself that he didn't want or care about things like anniversaries or good morning kisses or holding hands on the sidewalk. But he does want those things, always has, so he smiles and grips Harry's hand tighter and lets himself be led to the underground station a few streets over and tries to soak it all in.  
  
They get off the tube at High Street Kensington and Harry tugs Louis along by the hand, passing tourists and shoppers and a billion well-dressed, beautiful people on their way to expensive, exciting things. Louis eyes them all, daring them to look twice at Harry, to give him a chance to exercise his new privilege of getting to be possessive of him. He feels invincible, and punch-drunk, and recklessly, bottomlessly happy.  
  
Harry picks a posh little cafe with a menu that's half in French and art on the walls that looks like it's worth more than Louis' car. The servings are miniscule and plated in ridiculously artistic ways, and Louis teases Harry mercilessly for picking somewhere so obviously intended to impress him, but Harry's trying so hard and it's terribly endearing.  
  
They spend the meal catching up, with Louis telling Harry all about community theatre and the new school year and Harry telling Louis all about his internship and the weird artsy friends he's made since he moved to London. Louis has him explain the basics of photography to him, general terminology and what the industry's like, that sort of thing. He's decided that this time around he's going to be just as invested in every part of Harry's life as Harry is in his, and that starts with asking these questions. Harry seems thrilled to share as much of it with Louis as he can, and Louis finds himself nodding along eagerly, caught up in Harry's infectious enthusiasm.  
  
Once they've split dessert and Louis has paid for the meal, they head back out onto the sidewalk together.  
  
"Sorry about the restaurant," Harry says, twitching with his hair. "I wanted to take you somewhere nice, but um, I've never actually eaten here before. Gemma likes it?"  
  
He offers Louis an apologetic smile, and Louis just shakes his head and laughs. "It's fine. To be honest, I didn't really care about the food."  
  
"Yeah, me neither," Harry says. He takes a step forward, reaching up to slide a hand to the side of Louis' face. "So, since you've bought me lunch now, is it all right if I kiss you?"  
  
"Mmm, such a gentleman," Louis says, pulling Harry in closer by the waist. "Yes, you may kiss me."  
  
Harry smiles and presses their lips together, and it's sweet and innocent and perfect, right in the middle of the sidewalk with the sounds of London all around them. They keep it short, like a proper first kiss, and it almost feels like one. It feels like a first something.  
  
"Where to next?" Harry asks him, close and soft. "You pick."  
  
Louis considers for a moment before pulling Harry down the street with him, dodging a small herd of schoolchildren in knee socks. The weather is doing him the tremendous favour of holding out for this date, and Louis intends to take full advantage.  
  
So they wander into Kensington Gardens hand-in-hand, bypassing the Palace and taking the road toward Hyde Park. He'd pictured Harry here before, when they were apart, and he wants to be able to picture the two of them here together.  
  
There are dozens of other couples out today, sitting on benches with their arms around each other, coasting on side-by-side bicycles, crouching down by the edge of the pond with their children to feed the ducks. Louis finds himself smiling at them, wanting to run up to them with Harry like a five-year-old with a new toy and show them that, look, he's got love too, he's one of them, he gets to be happy after all. He doesn't, though, because he's not actually five, or mental, or keen to have Harry look at him like he's either. But still, for a long time it was a feeling he'd stopped believing he'd ever have again, and it nearly knocks the wind out of him.  
  
They carry on down the path toward the Serpentine, swinging their hands between them and talking about everything from primary school to their mums to football to reality television. It feels so good that this hasn't changed between them either, that they can fall right back into the easy rhythm they always had with each other. Louis really has missed this part of their relationship just as tremendously as he missed the rest, and it feels like he's got his best mate back.  
  
They're just having a laugh over the whole kissing booth debacle of last autumn's fair, competing to see who can do a better impression of Zayn's annoyed face, when Louis decides to just say what he's thinking for once.  
  
"I wanted to kiss you that night," Louis confesses, and Harry looks up at him through his eyelashes. "At the fair. Well, I mean, I wanted to kiss you the minute I saw you, but when we were on the Ferris wheel that night, I wanted to kiss you so badly I thought I was going to die, and that's when I knew I was in trouble."  
  
"Are we playing that game, then?" Harry says, grinning ruefully at him. "All right. The carwash. I came up with that idea to try to impress you."  
  
Louis laughs, remembering how excited Harry had been about putting it on and the look on Zayn's face when they'd sprayed him with the hose. "Really?"  
  
"Yeah, I was planning on taking my shirt off or something, but then the Zayn thing happened. I was trying to impress you with that too. Because I was stupidly in love with you and I knew it already," Harry says with a flippant hand gesture. "Your turn."  
  
Louis thinks for a minute, trying to pick out a good one. "I wanted to have sex with you that night we snuck onto the pitch to play football."  
  
"Already told me that," Harry says. "Boring."  
  
"Well," Louis says, lowering his voice and slipping two fingers into Harry's back pocket, "I never told you that I went home that night and had a wank thinking about it as soon as I got through the door."  
  
"Louis!" Harry crows, clapping his hands like this is the best thing he's ever heard. He reels Louis in by the sleeve and kisses the side of his neck while Louis laughs and pretends to try to fight him off, kicking his feet ineffectually against the ground. "Dirty  _bastard_. I love it."  
  
They go on like that for half an hour, trading stories of all the times they wanted to do or say something to each other but never did. It's incredibly freeing, Louis finds, to finally get all of these old things off his chest, to turn them into a thing to laugh about with Harry. This is how they're going to fix things, one piece at a time.  
  
They cross Serpentine Bridge together and Harry lets go of Louis' hand to pull out his camera half a mile later. He takes pictures of dogs and children in the grass and Louis beside him, sometimes when he's mugging for the camera and sometimes when he's not paying attention at all, just talking or watching the people around them. Eventually Harry tugs on Louis' arm to get him to stop, having decided that he wants a picture of the two of them together in Hyde Park.  
  
"It's film, so there's no way to review the pictures," Harry says, turning the camera toward them and holding it out at arm's length. "We'll just have to hope for the best."  
  
"I've got a better idea, actually," Louis says. He reaches out and gingerly takes the camera out of Harry's hands. "Watch."  
  
There are people passing by them on the path left and right, and Louis picks out a young woman with blue hair and her nose stuck in a paperback. She's also got a camera of her own around her neck and looks exactly like the type of friend Louis imagines Harry probably has around here, so he figures she won't be averse to helping the cause.  
  
"Excuse me," he says, stepping into her path. She looks up from her book, seeming a bit annoyed at being interrupted, and Louis winces. "Terribly sorry to bother you, but would you mind taking a picture of me and my boyfriend?"  
  
The word is out of his mouth before he even knows he's saying it, and then suddenly he forgets all about the woman in front of him because his heart is in his throat and his ears are ringing. He turns back to Harry instinctively, checking his reaction, and Harry's beaming at him like he's never been happier in his entire life, so he figures it's okay.  
  
"All right," the woman says, yanking Louis back to reality. She tucks her book under her arm and extends her hand for the camera.  
  
"Thank you so much," Louis says, passing it to her. He hurries back to where Harry's standing and puts an arm around his waist.  
  
" _Boyfriend_ ," Harry whispers in his ear. Louis just squeezes Harry's waist and smiles for the camera. He doesn't even think about trying to hide anything. He knows the pictures will probably show every bit of sappy, nauseating, lovesick happiness on his face in unforgiving detail. Good. Let them.  
  
"Three, two, one," the woman says, and Louis hears the sound of the shutter as she takes the picture. "Okay, one more."  
  
She counts off again, and this time Harry turns his head and plants a kiss on Louis cheek just before she takes it. They both thank her about a dozen times as she gives the camera back to Louis and continues on her way, and Louis turns back to Harry and slips the camera over his head.  
  
"Boyfriend," Harry says again, wrapping his hands around Louis' on the camera strap.  
  
"Yeah, boyfriend," Louis says, and he loves the way the word feels on his tongue almost as much as he loves the way Harry's face lights up every time he says it. He gives the strap a little tug and steps backwards toward the grass. "Come on."  
  
Harry tucks the camera back in the case and follows, and they settle down in the grass underneath a tree, Harry's back leaning up against the trunk and Louis nestled between Harry's sprawling legs. Louis pulls one of Harry's hands into his lap so he can hold it between both of his own, and they sit like that for a while, talking in low voices to each other, breathing each other in. Harry still smells like Harry, like fabric softener and strawberry shampoo and grass and boy, and Louis memorises everything about it. He wants to wear it everywhere he goes.  
  
The day's getting later and the weather is starting to get greyer and colder, and Harry hugs Louis tight against his chest when he feels him shivering at a gust of wind. Louis takes advantage of the moment and lolls his head back onto Harry's shoulder, burying his nose in Harry's hair and leaving his neck immediate and exposed. Harry takes the bait and leans down to kiss a slow line down Louis' throat, making him shiver all over again.  
  
Louis turns in Harry's arms enough to get one hand on the side of Harry's face and then kisses him properly on the mouth, tracing his thumb over Harry's chin, letting it slide up to feel the place where their lips meet. Harry kisses him back openly, completely, and Louis turns around fully now so that he's sitting cross-legged between Harry's thighs. He was chilly a minute ago, but with one hand pushed inside Harry's leather jacket and the other in his hair, it's hard to remember any of that.  
  
"Hang on," Harry says, breaking the kiss. "Bloody tree. Here, scoot back."  
  
Louis laughs as Harry rubs the back of his neck, sliding his bum backwards in the grass to give Harry more room. Harry leans forward and grabs Louis around the waist before rolling them down and backwards together. It takes a bit of rearranging to get into the position Harry wants, but finally Louis balances out on Harry's chest with Harry laid out flat on his back beneath him.  
  
"This is quite cozy for the park," Louis says, tracing his fingers over Harry's hipbone.  
  
"Worried about traumatising someone's nan with our wanton displays of passion?" Harry says, grinning.  
  
"Nah," Louis says. "Just, we've never snogged where anybody could see before. At least not sober."  
  
Harry slides his hands up Louis' back, rubbing circles in the fabric of his jumper. "See them over there?" Harry says, tilting his head to the right. Louis follows Harry's line of vision to another young couple across the way, a boy and a girl, wrapped up in each other in the grass. "Snogging in the middle of the park. It's what you're supposed to do with your boyfriend when you're young and stupid."  
  
"Well, you're definitely young and stupid," Louis teases, and Harry laughs and sticks out his tongue.  
  
They end up snogging for a while there, nothing too heated, just gentle kisses and Harry's hands on Louis' waist. It does make Louis feel young and stupid, and maybe he spends plenty of time feeling stupid, but he hasn't really felt young in years. Harry reminds him, sometimes, that he's only twenty-six, that there's still so much ahead of him. He thinks that's part of the reason why Harry was the only one who could open him up when nobody else could, because he's the only one who makes him feel like the story of his life wasn't written by the time he turned twenty.  
  
They're interrupted by the sound of Harry's stomach growling noisily, and Louis has to break off to laugh at that, because it's so funny and so typical.  
  
"Sorry," Harry says, covering his face with one hand. "This is what I get for trying to be posh."  
  
"It's all right," Louis says. "We'll find somewhere better for dinner, yeah? Somewhere with actual food."  
  
"Actually, um," Harry says, thumbing Louis' ribs through his jumper, "as much as I am enjoying this date, it's starting to be really difficult to see you in my clothes and not want to get you out of them right now."  
  
Louis grins. "Well, I'm flattered, but I don't put out on the first date."  
  
"That is a  _lie_ ," Harry laughs, and Louis swats at his shoulder. "Look, what do you say we stop at Tesco's on the way home, and I'll make you a gigantic dinner," he leans in close to Louis ear, "and then I'll eat it off of you."  
  
Louis swallows. "That sounds like an excellent plan."  
  
In Tesco's, Louis takes great joy in trying to sneak things into the shopping basket without Harry noticing, slipping in marshmallows and feta cheese and one very out-of-place loaf of French bread. Harry always catches him and puts the smuggled goods back on the shelf, shaking his head but smiling, but by then Louis will be halfway down another aisle, looking for another way to make Harry laugh. It feels like they've been doing this for years, and under the fluorescent lights and surrounded by cans of soup Louis feels as at home as he's ever been.  
  
He helps Harry carry the shopping on the tube, plastic bag cutting into his hand. He butts his head against Harry's shoulder affectionately as the train takes a curve.  
  
"What?" Harry asks, looking down at him.  
  
"Nothing," Louis says, and does it again.  
  
When they get back to Harry's flat, Louis tries to beg off and claim he needs a shower, but Harry drags him into the kitchen. "You're helping," he says in a tone that brooks no argument. He hands Louis a package of snap peas. "Drain these in the colander, would you? It's under the sink."  
  
Louis looks at the sink. "Is that the thing with holes in, then?" he asks, and Harry groans.  
  
After Louis manages to burn a panful of rice, Harry puts him on washing-up duty, cleaning the things Harry hands him as Harry does all of the actual cooking. Louis hates washing dishes, but he amuses himself by flicking water at Harry periodically while he does something involving several frying pans and significant amounts of steam. At one point, Harry snaps and pins Louis up against the sink, kissing him with oven-mitted hands on either side of his face. "Stop being a twat," he says against Louis' mouth.  
  
"Never," Louis grins, and Harry grins back.  
  
He does lay off a bit, though, and instead starts belting Katy Perry songs in his most obnoxious voice until dinner is ready. It turns out that Harry's put together some sort of delicious stir-fry concoction, all rice and beef and vegetables and delicious sauce in portions that make a hell of a lot more sense than what they dealt with at lunch. Louis can't help but stuff his face in a way that's probably less than attractive, but Harry just seems pleased he's enjoying it.  
  
When they're finished, Louis moves to clear the table, but Harry stops him. "If you want, you can go take that shower while I make dessert," he says, his hand curling around Louis' wrist, and who is Louis to say no to that? He makes his way to the bathroom and strips off, stepping under the spray happily as he imagines what sort of ridiculous thing Harry is putting together. Probably some sort of elaborate pastry with chocolate filling or something. He could have a souffle secreted about his person somewhere, for all Louis knows.  
  
After he rinses off, he steps out of the shower and towel dries before walking back out into the flat with just a towel wrapped around his waist. Harry is leaning against his kitchen counter, idly tossing a can of whipped cream in his hand. He shrugs when he sees Louis.  
  
"I was going to try to do something impressive," he drawls, "But then I thought, you know, you already love me, so. Shall I just eat this off you instead?"  
  
"Yeah, that works," Louis says, and then drops his towel. He runs to the bed, and Harry is right behind.

 

 

**Chapter 23.**

Sunday morning is grey and rainy, which does nothing to make Louis want to leave the warmth of Harry’s bed when he groans awake. Even when he’s only been up for about thirty seconds, he still knows what Sunday means. He has to leave today, has to go back to Manchester tonight and back to work tomorrow, and while everything about his life is easier now with Harry in it, he can’t pretend he isn’t dreading walking away.

 

Shifting around in the sheets, he realises that he’s alone. Rolling over, he rubs a hand over his eyes and sees Harry bopping around the kitchen. “Morning, sunshine,” Louis says, voice gravelly from sleep, and the way Harry smiles at him makes the nickname apt.

 

They eat breakfast at the table, tea and toast and cold feet knocking together. They’re quiet, and Louis finds himself just watching Harry. It feels silly, that just watching someone else eat breakfast could make his heart swell, but Louis is starting to feel like he’s going to be spending a long time being very silly indeed.

 

It’s just that Harry is a real person—who takes his tea like an idiot and uses two separate knives for the butter and the jam—and he has flaws too and he gets scared too and he loves too, loves with that same screaming intensity as Louis does. He’s just had more practice, or maybe less. Louis watches Harry eat breakfast and doesn’t want to go home tonight with anything left unsaid.

 

“Want to see something cool?” Harry says out of the blue, and Louis can just nod, because he’s in love with a toddler.

 

Harry doesn’t explain further, just nods happily and clears the table. They get dressed quickly, Louis putting on his own trousers but slipping into one of Harry’s shirts, a soft cotton long-sleeved number that’s loose around the collar and has Harry looking at him with promise in his eyes. He grabs his camera bag and an umbrella, and then they’re out the door.

 

Louis expects for them to head towards the tube again, but they walk in another direction, Harry’s arm tight around his waist to keep them both under the umbrella.They walk for less than ten minutes, winding around corners and crossing streets, until they reach a massive block of flats. It’s covered with graffiti and could only generously be described as upright, and Louis is beginning to question Harry’s common sense.

 

“As romantic as this is, love,” he says, shivering slightly in the rain. “I’m not sure we’re at the ‘drug deal’ point in our relationship. Don’t wanna rush that, that’s really a second anniversary sort of thing.”

 

“Piss off,” Harry says, nudging Louis with his shoulder, and steps up to the door, keying in the access code.

 

“Do you also live here?” Louis says, peering over Harry’s shoulder as they walk through the door. “Do you have secret identity? Are you a superhero with a shit real estate agent?”

 

Harry just laughs, slinging an arm around Louis’ neck and pulling him towards the elevator. “Got it in one, Tommo. We’re heading to my lair.” He presses floor number 14, and they’re headed up.

 

When Harry actually has a key to number 1426, Louis starts to actually get a little nervous. “If you have, like, a secret wife or something, this is really not the way to tell me,” he jokes, leaning against the doorframe and watching Harry struggle with the lock. The whole hallway looks like it’s falling apart, peeling paint and bare light bulbs like a horror movie set.

 

With a victorious laugh, Harry finally gets the lock to work, letting the door swing open. Before he walks in, though, he turns and pins Louis against the doorframe, kissing him with a thorough sweetness before dropping one last peck on his cheek. “I haven’t got a secret wife,” Harry says, and then grabs his hand and pulls him inside.

 

It’s just a normal flat, clearly lived-in, but Harry pulls him past the bed in the main room and towards what should be the bedroom. “This is my friend Benji’s flat,” he says. “He was in the photography department at Manchester and moved out here at around the same time.”

 

“Why do you have a key to Benji’s flat?” Louis asks, watching Harry pull out another key to open the door of the not-bedroom.

 

“This is why,” Harry says, and lets the door swing open. It’s dark, and Louis steps cautiously inside. When his eyes adjust, he realizes why Harry hasn’t turned the light on.

 

It’s a darkroom.

 

There aren’t any prints up now, which must be why Harry was able to open the door and let the light of the flat inside, but Louis can still recognize it for what it is. There are sinks and trays and stacks of photo paper and bottles of chemicals that Louis couldn’t identify with a gun to his head, all surrounded by criss-crosses of string and clothespins for prints to hang later.

 

Louis spins and looks at Harry accusingly. “You liar,” he says with a grin. “This is totally your wife.”

 

Harry laughs, stepping inside the room. It’s small, but there’s space for the two of them. “Ah, but you said secret wife. You can’t pretend to be surprised.”

 

“I suppose that’s fair,” Louis says.

 

“Don’t worry,” Harry says, taking his camera out of the bag and setting it down on the bench. “She’s Benji’s, really. I just get to come by when he’s away.” He pulls the door closed, plunging them into darkness. “I was thinking I would develop some of the prints from yesterday in the park?” he says. In the pitch black his voice seems somehow louder. “The first bit has to be in the dark, sorry.”

 

“S’alright,” Louis says. “What shall I do in the meantime?” He feels a bit at sea. He knows the room is small, but standing alone, touching nothing in the darkness, he could be in outer space.

 

“There’s cushions in the corner if you’d like to sit,” Harry says, and Louis can hear the sounds of him fiddling with equipment. “Or if you want—I could sort of tell you about what I’m doing?”

 

“I’d like that,” Louis says, “Though I can’t really see anything.”

 

“C’mere,” Harry says, and Louis jumps at the sudden feeling of Harry’s hand finding him in the dark. His hand fumbles until it reaches Louis’ and he pulls him closer. Lacing their fingers, Harry reaches down until both their hands find the camera. “Ok, so this is where you start,” he says, opening the back and taking the negatives out clumsily with Louis’ fingers still tangled in his.

 

Louis presses up against Harry’s back and slides his other hand down Harry’s other arm until he finds his hand. He rests his head against Harry’s shoulder and feels him move, listening to the soft sound of his voice and feeling the vibrations of it through his ribs. He listens to what Harry says as he narrates what he’s doing, he really does, because he wants to understand, but he finds himself distracted by the way Harry floods his senses in the dark. The clean sweat boy smell of him, the living warmth coming through his t-shirt. Every hitch of his breath, every shift of his shoulderblades is telegraphed to Louis as he does this thing that he loves. It’s not sexual, but it feels a lot like sex. It’s intimate.

 

Harry clears his throat after some time, and Louis blinks back to alertness. “This next bit doesn’t have to be in the dark,” he says, shifting away from Louis and moving back toward the door. “Careful of your eyes.” He flips a switch.

 

The room comes alive with dark red light, Harry reappearing before Louis’ eyes picked out in crimson. Like magic.

 

“There’s still a decent bit left to do,” he says. “If you’re bored we can do something else?”

 

Louis thinks suddenly of the first time he set foot inside Harry’s flat in Manchester, the feeling he had that he was standing inside Harry’s brain. Here, bathed in dark red light, he thinks he might be inside Harry’s heart.

 

“I’m not bored,” he says, leaning in to kiss the corner of Harry’s mouth as it curves into a smile.

 

He moves back and settles into the corner, curling up on the few cushions that have been piled there, and watches idly as Harry goes back to work. He can’t pretend that he follows what Harry is doing, what causes him to move pieces of film from one chemical to another or how the picture ends up on the photo paper, but it’s nice to just watch Harry be in his element, just like it was nice to feel him earlier. It’s remarkably similar to how Harry is in the kitchen, now that he thinks of it: puttering around, starting sentences he’ll never finish, singing snatches of songs that Louis half-remembers. Safe, Louis thinks, and opens his mouth.

 

“Can I tell you the stuff you wanted to know?” he asks, sitting up on the cushions. “The stuff I said I would tell you.”

 

Harry turns, putting down a set of tongs. “Yeah, of course,” he says, starting to peel off a pair of gloves. “As long as you—”

 

“I’m sure,” Louis says, biting down on his cheek to keep from smiling. “And you should keep working. I want you to, actually, it makes it easier for me. If you’re doing something else.”

 

“Okay,” Harry says, looking a little unsure, and rolls the gloves back down his hands before turning back to work.

 

Louis tries to collect his thoughts, to figure out what he wants to say, but can’t quite find the words. So he starts there, instead, starts from his own hesitancy. “Have you ever had things that you didn’t talk about,” he says, voice small but loud in the tiny room, “Because it felt like too much? Like, it felt like it was the stuff that defined you, defined your life, and so there was no point to talking about it because it was like—I don’t know, like it was more than could ever be explained to anybody else. Like a fish trying to explain what water is.”

 

Harry sort of nods, but doesn’t turn around, and Louis thanks him silently for giving him the space to do this his way.

 

“And then you try to talk about it,” he continues. “And it just—when you put it into words, or even write it down, it just feels so small. Like, it doesn’t matter that it felt like the world was ending. The second it comes out of your mouth it feels small, and stupid, and like you shouldn’t even be complaining at all. And like it shouldn’t have mattered, that if you were better it wouldn’t have mattered. So when you talk about it you’re just giving yourself away, you’re just showing people how weak you are.”

 

Harry is gripping the edge of the sink hard as he flips a print over, but still doesn’t turn. Louis loves him so much.

 

“There’s a lot of stuff like that for me, stuff that matters and hurts and is important, but I never really talk about it. Not just because it hurts or because I don’t trust people, but because—it doesn’t make me feel sad anymore, not like it used to. It makes me feel stupid. I feel stupid that it happened, and I feel stupid that I cared, and I feel stupid that I still care now. But I think that maybe you’ll be nicer to me than I am. You have a habit of doing that. And it still is important, to understand why I do some of the weird shit that I do, so I want you to know it. Even if it feels small.”

 

He takes a moment to catch his breath, watching Harry begin to pin prints to the line with barely-shaking hands, and then he begins.

 

He starts from the beginning, the story of little teenage Louis Tomlinson in his closet made of paper. Harry’s already heard most of this part, because it was always relevant to the whole Stuart conversation they sometimes used to have, and his high school years feel somehow detached from everything that came after, so talking about that time never seemed quite so dangerous. He talks about how he’d wanted to just be normal, to be liked, to make his parents proud of him, even though his dad had been out of the picture for years and Mark was about as close as he had to an actual father figure.

 

He came out to his mum when he was eighteen, and he’d hated himself for putting that on her when she was only beginning to process the divorce, but lying to her felt even worse. She’d been wonderful about it, told him she loved him always and that it never made a difference to her, made him promise to bring any suitable boys ‘round for her to meet them. That had been the one great mercy of that whole situation, how much closer he felt to his mother after telling her.

 

The end of sixth form was great, though, because it was finally finishing school and feeling like the whole world was spread out before him waiting for him to wreak havoc. He tells Harry about landing the starring role in Grease, which he’d loved since childhood (John Travolta in tight trousers had perhaps been a revelatory experience), and how much it had boosted his confidence. He remembers joy back then, despite everything else, because he was young and on top of the world and anything was possible. And he wanted to fall in love so, so badly.

 

After graduation it was off to university with Stan in tow, signed up on a three-year plan for an extended diploma in musical theatre. They decided against rooming together, but they did live on the same hall with randomly assigned flat mates. Louis’ first memories of uni are classes that made him excited to get up in the morning and nights of getting much too drunk much too quickly and Kale.

 

Kale was older and tall and gorgeous and wore shirts with the names of bands Louis had never heard of, and when Louis first laid eyes on him he was convinced that it was love at first sight. His first couple of months at uni were spent trying desperately to win Kale’s approval and swindling free drinks at bars near campus to afford the cost of going to every show Kale’s band ever played.

 

Louis had never done more than kissed a boy, and he wanted more than anything for Kale to be his first time. He knows now he must not have been subtle about things at all, because he seems to remember a lot of getting drunk at parties and winding up on Kale’s lap, but at eighteen he hadn’t really known how to go about things and he was starving for it. He didn’t care who knew.

 

Finally, one night after a party, he’d found his way into Kale’s bed. It hadn’t been gentle at all, not nearly enough for Louis’ first time, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was having sex with the boy he’d been obsessed with practically since he set foot on campus, and he was so cool, and fit, and he picked Louis out of all the other eligible people lining up to fuck him, and that meant Louis was special. He remembers when it was over, lying there next to Kale in bed and thinking he’d been right about everything, that the world was fucking his, and wasn’t everyone going to be so impressed with the new boyfriend he’d managed to bag.

 

Of course, Kale had never called him again, mostly because he never even asked for Louis’ number. After a month it became clear that there were no mixed signals, nothing complicated about it, as much as Louis had tried to build it up in his head. The simple truth was that he was a fuck, a single nameless, meaningless fuck in a long line of nameless, meaningless fucks. That had stung like only the first proper rejection could.

 

He’d spent a while after that feeling idiotic and childish, and looking back he almost feels endeared to his past self, like he wants to knit him a little onesie that says “Baby’s First Disillusionment With Love.” Maybe if he’d liked girls, or if there had been boys for him back in Doncaster, he would have gotten it over with early, leaving the teen angst in middle school where it belonged. He’d been running behind. He needed to catch up.

 

There were a lot of nights out with his and Stan’s new friends, making out with boys he didn’t know in the back of clubs he doesn’t remember the names of, trying to get the whole thing out of his system. Thankfully he was such a baby at the time that it didn’t take him very long to bounce back, or at least not to bounce onto the next boy he thought he was in love with.

 

The next boy was Tom, his flat mate, the engineering student with good study habits and nice hands. He had blonde hair and a cute smile and he laughed at all of Louis’ jokes, and by the end of first term they’d become fast friends over pizza and video games and bottles of alcohol passed between them.

 

Except one day Louis looked at Tom, and suddenly friends wasn’t enough anymore. He remembers sitting across their little living room every day and wanting so badly to close that distance between them, listening to the sounds of Tom going about the little tasks of his life and feeling like he was in love with them all. Back then his heart was spilling everywhere, and he’d wanted so badly to give it to somebody. He gave it to Tom, and he never knew if Tom really understood that.

 

He knew that Tom liked how much Louis liked him, that he loved it when Louis would be all over the place but then focus in on him like he was the only thing in the world worth his undivided attention. He knew that Tom didn’t mind when Louis jumped up in his bed and laid his head in his lap when they were up too late talking. One night in particular, when they were very drunk and very alone, he let Louis kiss him on the neck and then they never talked about it again. Louis was gone for him, so gone, and he kept biding his time, waiting for Tom to come around.

 

Then one day suddenly Tom had a girlfriend, some pretty brunette with a nice figure, and Louis thought he was going to throw up when he found out. The next thing he knew she was coming over all the time, sitting cross-legged on Tom’s bed and kissing him over textbooks, and all Louis could do was sit there and watch Tom be everything he wanted with somebody else every day.

 

That was too much for him to handle, even back then, and by third term he had started finding ways to stay out of his flat as much as possible. Thankfully his classes kept him busy, and even though he could never seem to land a decent part in any of the uni productions, what he did manage to scrape up was enough to keep him sane. He was in the back of a dressing room dreading the walk back to his residential hall one night when he spilled his makeup kit all over the floor and somebody bent down to help him pick everything up, and that was how he met Daniel.

 

Daniel was half Spanish and had lips like an angel, and he was Louis’ first boyfriend. They started dating near the end of Louis’ first year at uni, and it lasted for six months, and Louis thought he was really, properly in love this time. They did everything together, including a lot of very educational things in bed that Louis attached a lot of feelings to when they were happening, because when you’re learning those things with somebody you love, it feels important.

 

They dated over the summer and well into the first term of Louis’ second year in uni, and Louis was only nineteen but he was already imagining ten years down the road, both of them on stages in London and going home to the same tastefully furnished flat. He couldn’t imagine ever not wanting to be with him, and he was sure Daniel felt the same way, even if he was a bit cagey about it.

 

And then Louis told Daniel he loved him for the first time, and Daniel dumped him a week later. He told Louis that he was too clingy, that they were young and he just wanted to have fun and it wasn’t like that for him.

 

Louis explains to Harry that this was how he first started to learn. He learned from Daniel, and from Tom and from Kale, that he wasn’t a person that other people wanted to expend themselves on. That love, real love, probably didn’t exist at all, and certainly wasn’t going to happen for him. He wasn’t a person who people wanted to love, not really, and even if he could get them to want to be with him for a while, even if he managed to rope them in, eventually the shine would wear off and they’d get sick of him or find something better. He wasn’t anybody’s place to stay, just a stop along the way.

 

All of those things cut down whatever sense of reckless hope he’d gotten when he first came out. It didn’t help that he kept getting turned down for every role he tried out for, that every single train ride to London for a casting call went absolutely nowhere. He wasn’t good enough, and that was something he’d always privately felt anyway, but it was worse to have it proven to him as more than just an anxious voice in the back of his head. He wasn’t leading man material, not even in his own life.

 

By this point in the story, Harry has run out of prints and has no busywork left. Instead, he sits down on the bench and listens, though at least he doesn’t look at Louis, just stares down at his hands. Louis is glad he’s still playing along, because he’s never, ever told anybody this much before, and he’s not sure he could do it with Harry looking at him.

 

He needs Harry to know it, though. It’s not just that he feels like he owes it to him, it’s that now that they’re doing this for real, he needs Harry to know exactly where he’s coming from. He needs Harry to know all the reasons he acts the way he does, because he needs this to work. He needs this to work more than anything.

 

So he folds his arms on top of his knees and keeps going.

 

Christmas 2011, Louis was still reeling from Daniel. He was on a tailspin, and his friends were doing everything they knew how to do for him, but it wasn’t enough. He was going to do something he would regret, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop him. If he was going to be alone, he might as well make sure he deserved it.

 

It was around that time that his dad had the nerve send him an invitation to a Christmas party at his new house with his new family after months without so much as a text message to check up on him. Louis had known when he got the invitation in his email that it was just extended as a gesture, and that he didn’t actually expect or want Louis to go. They weren’t really close, never had been—no matter how much Louis tried—and at that moment in time Louis was just unstable enough, just close enough to the edge, that one stupid email triggered every single pent up feeling he’d ever had about how much his dad didn’t seem to give a shit about him.

 

He showed up at the party already tipsy, wearing his tightest, reddest trousers, and made a point to offend or scandalise as many of his dad’s friends and business associates as possible. He may as well have worn a sign around his neck: Go on, Dad, ignore me. I’d like to see you try. Every obvious Daddy issues cliche wrapped up in one human being, with all the subtlety of a double-decker bus. He’s as much ashamed of that as anything, that he lost control that much. That he let himself be that affected.

 

He was in the kitchen fixing himself a drink when a man sidled up next to him and asked if he was sure he needed another. Louis remembers looking up to tell the prick off and then stopping himself when he saw that it was a man his dad had been doing business with since Louis was a kid, some corporate lawyer with a black Porsche and a perfect jaw. He was in his early forties, going gray at the temples, and Louis remembered that his name was Nathan Grant and he played golf with Louis’ dad.

 

It’d be a lie to say it seemed like a good idea at the time, because it didn’t. What it did seem like was a way to feel like he was getting back at his dad and prove to himself that he was still desirable in some way all at once. He locked them in the guest bedroom and let Grant fuck him while his idiot dad and his idiot friends carried on outside, and at least he felt like he was in control of something for a few minutes.

 

Of course, his dad found out, and of course, his dad blew the whole thing way out of proportion. Came and got him from uni, dragged him home to his mum and yelled at both of them for an hour. It turned out that apparently Grant had an affinity for collecting much younger boys, and Louis’ dad couldn’t believe Louis would humiliate him by being “one of his slags” and blamed his mum for raising him to be this way. It was a huge mess and Louis’ mum cried all night and Louis had never felt so completely worthless before in his entire life. It took months to get over that night, to stop believing that the things his father had said were true. They still come back to him sometimes, on bad days, and it’s always a conscious effort to push them back down.

 

He was hanging by a thread by the time he met Patrick, a dark-haired boy who was studying history and seemed to be Louis’ last hope. They dated for eight months, through graduation and the summer after, and it was good. It was really, really good, enough for Louis to start believing again that maybe all the other times had just been bad luck. He was fairly certain he was really in love this time, and for once Patrick felt the same way too.

 

Except Patrick’s parents would have disowned him if they had ever found out he was gay, and Patrick seemed to think he deserved it. Louis tried coming up with compromises, tried finding ways to reconcile how much Patrick said he loved him and how ashamed he seemed to be of it, but all he ever ended up doing was feeling worse about himself. It all blew up when he pushed a little too hard one day about cutting off his parents and Patrick told him that he might love him, but he was never going to love him that much. That was the worst thing Louis had ever heard, honestly. Worse than anything his dad could come up with on his worst day. It was one thing for somebody to tell him they didn’t love him. It was another for them to tell him that loving him wasn’t enough.

 

In the end Patrick left, moved across the country and never spoke to Louis again except for a few drunken late night phone calls. Last Louis heard, Patrick was married to a nice girl with one on the way.

 

That was the one that finally broke him. Even when everything was perfect, it still hadn’t mattered. He couldn’t make him stay. He couldn’t be enough. What was the fucking point?

 

He gave up on just about everything after that. It wasn’t like he could afford to keep making the trip to London for auditions anyway, so giving up on that particular dream made sense. It was how his life was supposed to go, just another thing he wanted and wasn’t good enough to have. He’d always known it was a longshot, and he had probably always been better suited for teaching anyway. That was all he had wanted before he got carried away in delusions of being a star, and it was time to get realistic. He shut himself away from practically everyone in his life at that point, focused on going back to school for a bit and sorting out his certifications and saving up as much money as he could.

 

He packed up and ran from Doncaster as soon as he could afford it. He couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t keep living in his mother’s house when she barely had the money to support the girls, couldn’t handle the sympathetic way she looked at him and the constant reminder of everything he’d ever done to make things harder for her. He couldn’t pass all the places that reminded him of the people who’d broken his heart and all the things he used to care about before he figured out that he wasn’t ever going to get to be happy. He had to get out.

 

He ended up in Manchester because he didn’t think his piece of shit car could make it much farther, and also he had some old friends from uni out there who didn’t look at him like he was a cautionary tale. He managed to find a decent flat and a job a few months later, which was considerably better than the position he’d been in since he graduated uni, and he adopted a cat, and he met Zayn, and then Niall.

 

The next few years were nothing special. After Patrick he’d sworn off relationships, so he just kept to the habit he’d developed in Doncaster of having meaningless sex with strangers with names he only bothered to learn if they bought him a drink first. If any of them ever showed an interest in anything more than sex, he’d give the poor sod a fake number and send him on his merry way, never to be seen again. For years, he didn’t let his guard down for anyone. That was how he operated, and maybe it didn’t make him happy, but at least it worked. Nobody hurt him because nobody could. At the time, it had seemed like all he deserved.

 

Louis has reached the end of the story now, or at least the last part up to what Harry already knows. He feels winded like he’s just run a marathon, and emptied out, but he also feels a strange sense of relief. He hasn’t talked about any of these things in so long, and he never really realized how much it kept weighing on him. It’s all out there now, all the ugliest, darkest parts of his past, and there’s nowhere farther down to go.

 

He looks up from the floor and Harry is silent and completely still in the red light save for a muscle clenching and unclenching in his jaw. He waits, but Harry doesn’t move or say anything.

 

“So, that’s everything,” Louis says, still watching Harry anxiously. “That’s who I was. I had sworn that I wouldn’t ever let anybody get close enough to hurt me again, until I met you.”

 

“And then I fucking left you too,” Harry spits out, coming back to life suddenly. He surges to his feet and crosses the room to grip the worktop, swearing under his breath.

 

“No, Haz, I’m trying to explain to you why it’s not all your fault,” Louis attempts.

 

“Do you have any idea how much I want to murder every arsehole who ever hurt you right now?” Harry says, spinning around, and Louis is reminded quite vividly of the day Harry came storming into his classroom and told him about Mike Kendall. “I swear to God, if I ever met any of them—but no, I haven’t even got the fucking right, because I was just as bad as any of them, I was—”

 

“You weren’t,” Louis says, “I told you, it was just as much my fault as it was yours.”

 

“I don’t care whose fucking fault it was!” Harry snaps, his voice breaking. “I was fucking oblivious, and I let you think I didn’t love you, and—”

 

“Harry!” Louis half-shouts, cutting Harry off. Harry freezes, eyes wide and mouth halfway open, and Louis tries not to find the shocked halibut expression on his face as comical as he does. He steps up to Harry, taking one of his hands and smiling softly at him. “I don’t blame you for anything, okay? I told you all that because I wanted you to know where I’m coming from, but you didn’t know anything back then. It wasn’t fair to you either.”

 

“Doesn’t undo what I did,” Harry mumbles after a moment. “The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you.”

 

“I know,” Louis says, touching the side of his face. “Hey, I was an arsehole too, remember?”

 

Harry laughs a little, and Louis can tell he’s starting to come back down. “Yeah, you were.”

 

“See?” Louis says. “We’re both arseholes. That’s why we’re meant for each other.”

 

Harry full-on grins at that, looking up into Louis’ eyes. “You think so?”

 

“Yeah,” Louis says, leaning up to kiss the top of Harry’s cheek.

 

Harry pulls Louis in by the small of his back, wrapping both arms around him. “Sorry. You’re trying to be open with me and I throw a fit.”

 

“It’s okay,” Louis says simply. “You love me.”

 

“I do,” Harry confirms. “And I love you for telling me everything you just told me. And I love you for loving me in spite of all that other shit, even after I was a complete twat.”

 

“That’s the spirit,” Louis says, and he reaches down and catches Harry totally off-guard with a surprise nipple twist. Harry yelps in pain and alarm and slaps Louis’ hand away, and then they’re laughing, and then they’re kissing, and Louis hopes this Benji bloke doesn’t mind if they get a bit fresh in his darkroom.

 

Before this, Louis kept thinking it would feel like things had changed when he finally spilled his life story to Harry, but it doesn’t really. There are still the same hands, the same kisses, the same laugh when Louis pins Harry’s hands to his chest and licks the end of his nose. There’s no nuclear fallout. For about the millionth time this weekend, he’s done something that used to scare the shit out of him, and the world still hasn’t ended.

 

Once the prints have dried, Harry cleans up after himself and takes them down gently one by one. He gets down a large folder from one of the top shelves and slides them inside carefully, and Louis watches. It’s hot, getting to see Harry do something he loves and is good at. Louis is into it. He could get into photography if it means just watching Harry do this all the time.

 

Harry packs up his things and they head out together, locking up behind them. The rain has stopped when they get outside, and their linked hands swing between them as the walk back.

 

When they get back to Harry’s flat, Harry slaps the folder of prints down on the kitchen counter and flips through them, Louis peering over his shoulder. They’re all from Saturday, pictures of Louis and their tiny lunch and Hyde Park and Louis and even a few inside Tesco’s. Louis’ favorite, though, and the one that Harry pulls out of the pile, is the one the woman with the blue hair had taken for them. Harry’s lips are pressed to Louis’ cheek, and Louis’ face is scrunched up in a thoughtless, crinkled smile, and they look very much like themselves.

 

Harry pulls the print out and puts it up on the wall with a few pieces of Blu-Tac. On the bare wall it looks stark and small, but Louis looks and sees that it’s right in the line of sight from Harry’s bed, so maybe it’s not so small after all. He can easily imagine it surrounded by all of Harry’s magpie nest of pretty things, and he looks over at the boxes in the corner, considering.

 

“Do you want to put the rest up?” Louis asks. “I could help.” Harry scratches at the back of his neck with a hesitant look on his face.

 

“Well, the thing is,” he says, “my internship only lasts until December, which is like two months from now. And I’m not sure if I’ll be staying here after that?” He says the last sentence like it’s a question, looking down at his feet and glancing up at Louis through his fringe. Louis isn’t sure how he manages that when he’s so goddamn tall, but that’s not really an urgent issue at the moment when there’s confetti raining down inside his head.

 

“Do you—did you have somewhere else in mind?” he asks, scuffing his feet on the floor and feeling like the luckiest idiot in the country.

 

“Would you want me to come back?” Harry says, and he still looks nervous, but he also looks like he’s braving his way through it.

 

Louis just manages to hold back from shouting yes, yes, an entire country full of yes, but it’s a close thing. He takes a breath instead and tries to his best think things through properly. He wants Harry with him, wants to cook terrible dinners with him and have excellent sex with him and go out on dates with him and wake up next to him in the morning. That’s a given. But he doesn’t have a darkroom in his apartment, and Manchester is great, but it isn’t London.

 

“I want you to be with me,” he says carefully. “And I want to be with you. And I want you to be happy.”

 

“Well, that’s settled, then,” Harry says, but Louis keeps going.

 

“But—” he starts, but Harry interrupts.

 

“I don’t like but’s,” he says. “No buts.”

 

“Let me finish, you shit,” Louis laughs. “I want you with me, but I don’t know how to be somebody’s whole life, Harry. And I don’t want you to give up your dreams and your talent and your career for me. So I want you to come back. I just don’t want you to come back just for me.”

 

Harry looks at him, and Louis knows the expression because he’s felt it on his own face so many times. It’s a nice rush to know he can make Harry make that face, make his face go slack with incredulity. That’s a good feeling.

 

“Okay,” Harry says. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll figure it out. I’ll start—I’ll start looking.” And then he’s right in Louis’ space, pulling him into a hug. “I love you a lot, you know.”

 

“I’ve got some idea,” Louis says, curling his fingers into Harry’s shirt.

 

“So,” Harry says, pulling back and holding Louis at arm’s length. “Until then—we’re doing this, right? I mean, for real.”

 

Louis nods. “I’m all in, if you are.”

 

Harry’s face breaks into a goofy grin. “I’m in. We can visit—I have to work weekends sometimes, but not always—”

 

“And we have phones—”

 

“And Skype—”

 

“We can do it,” Louis says firmly. “Even if I can’t be with you, I still want to be, you know. With you. You know what I mean,” he says, smacking Harry on the arm when he starts to snicker.

 

“I do,” Harry says, still laughing. “And you’d better. If you think I suffered through all that emotional monologuing this weekend for nothing—”

 

Louis goes in for the kill, tickle attack right in his sides, and enjoys Harry’s shrieks as they crumple to a heap in the middle of the floor. “How dare you!” he yells, biting Harry on the ear, and yeah. This is going to work.

 

✖

 

 

If Louis could be out on the last train, he would. He’d be on the ten o’clock train tonight, falling into bed back home at some ridiculous hour, exhausted and unshowered at work Monday morning but at least content with the thought that he spent as much time with Harry in London as he possibly could have.

 

He can’t, though. He’d been saving this weekend to get a small mountain of marking done, and now he shudders to think how behind he’s going to be when he gets back. Not to mention he’s starting to feel guilty about how many times he’s had to text Zayn to go see about Duchess this weekend. He needs to get back at some reasonable time of day. He knows this, objectively. But that doesn’t make him complain about it any less as they pull up the train schedule on Harry’s laptop, and it doesn’t stop the dread from pooling in his stomach as they ride the tube together to Euston Station to catch the five o’clock to Manchester.

 

Harry stays with him all the way through the station, and when they arrive at the platform, the train is already there. Louis feels his hand clench up around Harry’s, and Harry squeezes back like a reminder that he’s still there, that the train in front of them doesn’t really change anything.

 

The doors aren’t open yet, so Harry pulls his iPod out of his pocket and gives Louis one of the earbuds. They don’t say anything to each other, just wait there side-by-side, listening to Harry’s music together. The song that’s playing is familiar, and when Louis recognizes it, he leans his head into Harry’s shoulder and remembers the first time Harry played it for him that night after the Valentine’s dance. Always ridiculous. He should have known back then that this whole love-of-his-life business was going to get him in the end.

 

The platform is crowded with people, but Louis feels completely separated from all of them. It’s just him and Harry.

 

Finally, the doors slide open with a hiss, and everyone around them starts gathering up their bags and suitcases and fishing out their tickets and filtering on board. Louis feels last-minute panic tugging at his heart, and if he were just a little bit more reckless he’d just say fuck it and skip the train and spend another night on Harry’s mattress, but he’s not, and he can’t.

 

Suddenly he remembers it, the thing he grabbed out of his kitchen drawer at the last minute and shoved down in the bottom of the front pouch of his bag. He pulls his hand out of Harry’s and turns to face him, reaching into his bag with shaking hands. He looks up at Harry steadily as he digs for the thing amidst gum wrappers and long lost receipts, and when he finally finds what he’s looking for he extracts it carefully and holds it up between them. It’s the spare key to his flat.

 

“I know you won’t have much time to come back to Manchester,” Louis says. He reaches out and takes one of Harry’s hands, turning it palm up. “But when you do,” he presses the key into Harry’s open palm, “come home.”

 

He knows what this means, not just to him but to Harry too, and he holds his breath as Harry stares down at it, cradling it in his hand like he’s afraid he might break it somehow. When he looks up at Louis, his eyes are shining, but his mouth is curled up in a smirk on one side.

 

“Do you keep that there all the time,” he says, “or did you just think I was a sure thing?”

 

Louis grins so big he can hardly see, and he says, very fondly, “Shut up,” before he pulls Harry in by the lapels of his jacket and kisses him. Harry slides the key into his pocket and wraps his arms around Louis’ waist to kiss him back as enthusiastically as he pleases, lifting his feet up off the ground and turning them in a slow circle. Laughing into Harry’s mouth, Louis listens to the sounds of the world moving on around them and feels the sturdiness of Harry’s body against him and thinks that this, this won’t go away.

 

Harry puts him down at last, and they can’t put things off much longer. It’s time to go.

 

“I love you,” Louis says, touching the ends of Harry’s hair where it curls against his ear. Maybe if he can imprint the way that feels into the nerves in his skin it won’t be so hard to go without it until the next time they see each other again.

 

“I love you too,” Harry says. “I’ll come see you as soon as I can. And I’ll call you all the time. You’ll be sick of me. You’ll be like, ‘Why’s that Styles prick calling again, I just talked to him an hour ago, hasn’t he got anything better to do, what—’”

 

 

“I won’t get sick of you,” Louis says confidently. “I’m going to whine about how much I miss you all the time until Zayn bludgeons me to death with his copy of War and Peace.”

 

“We’re disgusting,” Harry says.

 

“Too right, we are,” Louis agrees happily. They’re the last ones on the platform by now, and Louis leans in for one last kiss. “I love you. Again.”

 

“I love you too. Again,” Harry says, hugging him tightly.

 

Louis swallows and pulls out of Harry’s arms, hiking his bag up higher on his shoulder. “It won’t be long,” he says, and then he turns and walks the few feet to the edge of the platform, taking a deep breath as he sets a foot in the train.

 

“Hey, Lou,” says Harry’s voice behind him.

 

Louis stops in the door and turns around to see Harry still standing right where he left him, hands pushed down deep in his pockets.

 

“Yeah?” he says.

 

“I am, you know,” Harry tells him. “A sure thing.”

 

Louis smiles around the tightness in his throat. “I know.”

 

He manages to find the last seat against a window, and he watches Harry grow smaller and smaller in the distance as the train pulls away from the platform until he’s gone around the corner. He can do this. They’re going to make this work. This doesn’t fall apart just because they’re in different places. It’s all right.

 

He pulls out his phone and opens up a blank text to Stan, because it just feels like the thing to do. He hasn’t the faintest idea where to start, or how to condense everything into a single text message. His entire life has just been changed in the course of one weekend.

 

In the end, he types out five words.

 

I went and got him

 

Stan texts back less than twenty seconds later.

 

I knew you would

 

**Chapter 24.**

Zayn is pulled unwillingly into wakefulness by Liam’s hand on his shoulder. “Zayn, wake up,” Liam murmurs, voice still thick with sleep. It’s the middle of November, and it’s warm in this bed, and Zayn is going to do no such thing.

 

“Zayn,” Liam says again, this time shaking him roughly. “Bo needs to go out, it’s your turn.”

 

“Mmmph,” Zayn counters, curling into a ball. Bed warm. He loves bed.

 

He feels motion down by his feet and cracks one eyelid open resentfully. Sure enough, Bo has jumped up on the bed and seems to be trying to chew on his feet through the duvet. Despite the fact that he feels more corpse than human, she notices that he’s awake and rushes up the bed to lick at his face.

 

“No,” he says, more to the universe than to the dog, putting a hand out so she can mouth at his fingers instead.

 

“You’re the one who wanted her,” Liam says teasingly, and Zayn could kill him for being capable of banter before noon.

 

“Hrrrrghh,” Zayn shoots back, and, after a moment of psyching himself up, rolls himself sideways out of bed, managing through some miracle of physics to land on his feet. He pulls on joggers and a t-shirt and some trainers blindly, Bo jumping up against his legs the whole time, before stumbling out into the flat, pulling on a coat, and grabbing Bo’s leash.

 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Zayn says, and it’s meant for Bo but it goes just as well for Liam. He squints at the beams of light streaming through the blinds of his kitchen window and curses the fact that for once it’s sunny in Manchester during winter. He snags his sunglasses off the little table by the door and then lets Bo out into the hallway before she gets a chance to scratch up the finish on his front door.

 

Downstairs, he doesn’t even try to walk her, just leads her to the little square of grass near the front steps of his building and stands there.

 

“Go,” he says.

 

Bo stares at him for a second, wagging her stumpy little tail, and then pivots on the spot and bounces away.

 

He has to admit, she is cute, and getting a puppy was his idea. Last week, at long last, he finished the final draft of his novel and sent it off to his editor. As it turns out, the whole influx of love and happiness and stability in his life was what he needed to make that final push to completing the bloody thing, which came as a bit of a shock to Zayn, who always felt that pain was the heart of creativity. It’s hard to be tragically poetic when you’re dating Liam Payne, but it worked out in the end.

 

Liam asked Zayn what he wanted to celebrate, and Zayn said he wanted a puppy. It seemed like the next logical step, seeing as it’s been almost a month since Liam moved into his flat for good, and Liam just grinned and agreed and asked him if he wanted to stop for frozen yogurt on the way to the RSPCA. Together they picked out a little mutt with a smushed face and brown splotches, took her home, and named her Bo, short for Bo Peep, because Liam is twenty-five years old and his favorite movie is still Toy Story. Zayn suspects she might be part pitbull, but didn't mention it to the people at the RSPCA. He's not sure they would have let them take her if they'd realized, and that makes him like her that much more.

 

She’s a little demon, and Liam is spoiling her rotten, but even now, watching her sniff around a scraggly patch of grass in the cold, Zayn can’t be mad at her. Yeah, she’s a pain in the arse, and she’s already ruined one of his favourite pairs of shoes, but. She turns Liam into a happy rough-housing child, and she follows Zayn around devotedly, and she’s a living reminder that Zayn is at a place in his life where he’s responsible for keeping something else alive. That’s probably worth the early mornings, though he’d never admit as much to Liam.

 

Bo starts sniffing around the single bare shrub outside his building, showing zero signs of actually needing to pee, and Zayn starts questioning if he’s being played for a fool here. He sticks his cold hands into his armpits and hops up and down a little to keep warm. He can’t really muster up the energy to be annoyed, honestly. If he thinks about it, he’s pretty sure this is the worst thing that’s happened to him all week, and that’s pretty special.

 

Things are great with Liam, even if he does commit the mortal sin of being a morning person. Zayn has way more free time now that he doesn’t have his editor breathing down his neck, which means more time both for his boyfriend and for his friends. That’s been especially convenient ever since he, Louis, and Liam started making a habit of going to see Niall play on the weekends. Those nights out usually keep even Liam in bed later than usual the next day. Next time Zayn is going to make him get up with Bo, just to watch him pretend to be cheerful through the hangover. Evil, but nothing less than he deserves. Louis would approve.

 

Ah, Louis. That’s another part of why things have felt so nice and settled lately. Ever since he got back from London, Zayn’s gotten to see him more than he has in months, and it’s nice not just to have his best mate back but to see him so much happier. He’s still the same Louis, but he’s different, too. He’s more like himself, even if Zayn has never seen him this way before, and it’s wonderful. Maybe it means having to listen to a million stories about what Harry said on their last Skype date or how much Harry likes the new Best Coast album or when he’s going to get to see Harry again, but Zayn doesn’t mind at all. He’s just really fucking happy that Louis’ happy, and that Harry’s happy, nobody has to tiptoe around each other anymore. Hell, Louis is actually opening up about things, more than Zayn has ever seen him do before. A week or so after he got back he sat Zayn down and gave him the rundown on his romantic history over leftover Thai, and Zayn feels closer to him than ever. If the price of that is dealing with Louis being as obnoxiously in love as Zayn is, he’ll gladly pay it. All is right in his little Zayn world.

 

Finally, Bo has finished up her business, and Zayn scratches her behind her ears and tells her she’s a good girl, and she pants up at him euphorically and follows him up the stairs.

 

He gives her a treat once they get inside, toes off his shoes, and pads back into the bedroom. Liam is still dozing in the bed, face smushed into the pillow and hair a mess, and Zayn is still sometimes amazed that this is his life.

 

Quietly, Zayn slips back under the duvet, and then presses his cold hands to Liam’s warm back. Liam splutters awake, scrambling away from him under the covers, but Zayn just grins and grabs him around the waist, spooning up behind him.

 

“Your hands are like ice, Zayn, God,” Liam whines, covering them up with his own but not trying to escape anymore.

 

“S’what you get,” Zayn mumbles, his lips pressed against Liam’s back. They lie like that a while, Liam rubbing his hands against Zayn’s to warm them up, until Liam heaves a breath and flops back over on his back.

 

“We should get up,” he says, poking at Zayn’s face.

 

His eyes still closed, Zayn shakes his head. “Absolutely not. I just tried it. Up is terrible.”

 

“I’ve got errands to run,” Liam says, all serious like “errands” doesn’t include spending half an hour watching cartoons and eating cereal. “Are we going out with the boys tonight, by the way?” he asks, tugging on Zayn’s fringe.

 

Zayn just snuggles in closer, still refusing to open his eyes. “Mmm, no, Louis’ not in town, remember? Surprising Harry,” he says, half into Liam’s armpit. “We’ve got all day, sleep.”

 

“Once I’m awake I can’t fall back asleep, you know that,” Liam says, but his voice is soft and pleased. Bo comes back into the room, but this time she just jumps up on the bed and curls up at Zayn’s feet. Good dog.

 

“Then just stay with me,” Zayn says.

 

Liam pulls one of Zayn’s hands up to his lips and presses a warm kiss against his knuckles. “Always.”

 

L

 

 

Louis is on another train to London.

 

He and Harry had really been hoping to get a chance to see each other again before now, but they’ve both been busy with work and it’s taken them this long just to find a weekend that works for both of them. Louis is very, very thankful that Harry’s internship only lasts for a few more weeks, because he misses him terribly. It was one thing to miss him when he thought he would never see him again, but this is a different animal entirely. Knowing that he actually could and will have Harry back makes the absence both more and less tolerable, more of an acute itch than that old dull ache. Things between them are still great, but Skype dates and dirty text messages and phone calls on their daily commute only go so far, and there’s only so many times Louis can wank to the memories of that weekend.

 

They have been making a very respectable go of the whole long distance thing. They haven’t gone more than a few hours since London without talking to each other unless they’re sleeping, and even then there’s the odd text in the middle of the night every so often because one of them can’t sleep. Even Louis’ sex life is still active, thanks to Harry’s affinity for phone sex and some very creative Skype sessions. He may not be getting laid in the flesh, but there’s something to be said for how much he gets off on coaching Harry to the edge and watching him come from his own hand and the sound of Louis’ voice over webcam. Still, he wants to touch Harry, wants to just sit in companionable silence with him too, wants to be with him all the time. They both want that, and it’s hard going without it.

 

So when their schedules finally lined up this weekend, Harry immediately started looking up tickets to Manchester, but Louis called him off. He had another idea.

 

Back in October, when he first got back to Manchester from his trip to London, the first thing he did was phone his mum. Well, actually, the first thing he did was enjoy the three-person surprise party of Zayn, Niall, and Liam waiting in his flat with balloons and a burnt cake with the words You have a boyfriend!!! scrawled on it in sloppy icing (Niall had eaten a piece by the time he got there, so it actually just said You have a boyf, but the sentiment still got across). But once they’d all gone home, he phoned his mum and asked her if she remembered the boy he’d told her about.

 

“I’ve got a boyfriend, mum,” he told her, unable to keep the grin out of his voice. She shouted down the line and demanded the full story and started crying when he let slip an “I love him,” and again when she told him she was proud of him and he responded that he was pretty proud of himself too.

 

So of course ever since, she’s been badgering him to bring “that man of his” home to meet the family, and Lottie’s been on him about it too since he sent them a picture and she got a look at just how fit her brother’s new boyfriend is. Maybe the rational thing to do might be to wait farther into their relationship to drag Harry back to Doncaster, but he already feels like they’ve been together forever, and the timing just feels right. And so when they had a weekend open, he checked with his mum and then suggested the trip to Harry.

 

Harry agreed so eagerly Louis wonders if he’s been wanting this for a while, and feels a pang of guilt about shutting Harry out of so much of his life for so long. He thinks that Harry would probably yell at him for thinking that way, though, so he pushes it aside and focuses on the present issue, which is that Harry is about to meet his family. His whole family. His mum and all four sisters. He knows they’ll love him—everyone loves him, it’s awful—but the idea of integrating these two halves of his life is still a bit daunting.

 

That might be one of the reasons that he’s pulling the ridiculous stunt he’s doing now; the sooner he meets up with Harry again, the calmer he’ll be. So, instead of going straight from Manchester to Doncaster and meeting Harry there like he said, he saved and scrimped for a few weeks to buy tickets from Manchester to London and from London to Doncaster. As far as Harry knows, he’ll be riding from London to Doncaster alone, but Louis is going to surprise him at the platform and ride with him all the way back. It’s silly, absurd, and over-the-top, but Louis wanted to do it, so he’s doing it. It’s something he’s been experimenting with, recently: doing things because they feel good.

 

So now he’s here, only barely keeping from pressing his nose up against the window as his train pulls into the station. His stomach is fizzing, but not with nerves: just genuine excitement. He’s going to see his boy.

 

He grabs his suitcase down from the overhead compartment, arms wobbling only a little at the weight—it never hurts to have wardrobe options, okay?—and bounds out onto the platform. He has twenty minutes to get to wherever Harry’s train is leaving from, and he may or may not throw a few elbows as he pulls his suitcase of the train and makes his way to the escalator.

 

Looking up at the big board, he finds Harry’s track number and makes his way eagerly through the concourse. He slows down as he passes a flower vendor, but then changes his mind. He may be more on board with this whole romance thing now, but he’s not Zayn.

 

Finally, he turns a corner and comes to track twelve, where, according to the voice on the intercom, the 15:23 East Coast train service to Newcastle, calling at Stevenage, Peterborough, Doncaster... will be leaving in ten minutes. The doors of the train are still closed, though, so he’s got plenty of time. He weaves his way through the crowd of people waiting, craning his neck as he looks for Harry. He hadn’t considered what could happen if he didn’t find him in time. It’s going to be embarrassing if he has to get on this train by himself and find Harry once they’re in Doncaster.

 

He stops worrying, though, when he spots a very familiar top of a head peeking over the crowd. A wave of affection hits him, filling him up with you exist and I love you all the way down to his toes. He’d planned to sneak up on him, to surprise him and maybe scare him a little, but when it comes down to it he can’t contain himself.

 

“Hey, Styles!” he shouts, pitching his voice over the white noise of the trains and the people, and Harry’s head whips around to spot him. A moment of disbelief, and then the sun rises in his face, and Louis would have saved up two months’ worth of pay for this moment right here.

 

Harry abandons the suitcase at his feet, and Louis doesn’t even stop to think about what a scene he’s making because they’re running toward each other across the platform and as soon as the distance between them closes his feet are off the ground and Harry’s spinning him around in the air.

 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Harry half-shouts into Louis’ hair. Louis starts to answer but Harry doesn’t seem to actually care about the explanation, just kisses him happily, squeezing him so tight that Louis can hardly breathe.

 

“I didn’t want to wait,” Louis tells him once he’s been set back down.

 

Harry’s mouth opens and closes a few times, still pulled wide by his smile, and Louis hopes that this gesture is enough to show him how much his feelings haven’t changed since they’ve been apart, how much he’s still in this for keeps. He tugs Harry down by the front of his shirt for another kiss, because it’s been too fucking long.

 

They break apart and Harry just stares at him, looking amazed, and is about to say something when the doors slide open with a hiss. He grabs Louis’ hand and his suitcase. “Come on, we want to get seats together,” he says, and the two of them hurry onto the car.

 

Louis manages to snag the last two adjacent seats, staring down a pair of businessmen and elbowing through a gaggle of teens. Harry lifts their suitcases up into the compartment, and then slides into the window seat, putting the armrest up so there’s nothing between them. Louis stands there in the aisle for a second, just taking it in, looking at Harry looking back at him. He can’t stop smiling.

 

He drops down into the seat and fits under Harry’s arm like a puzzle piece, and they’ve only been back in the same place for about ten minutes but it already feels normal again. It feels just as much like coming home as getting on a train to Doncaster. Louis shifts around, rearranging Harry’s ludicrous limbs until he’s comfortable with his head on Harry’s chest. He reaches to play with Harry’s necklaces as they wait for the train to move, sliding the chains between his fingers like he’s always liked to do, but he stops short when he see what’s hanging from one of them. Running his fingers over it carefully, he confirms that it is what he suspected: the spare key to his flat.

 

His eyes flick up to Harry’s. He’d think it was a nice gesture, but Harry hadn’t known he would be here. “You—do you wear this all the time?” he asks hesitantly.

 

Harry just shrugs, looking only a little nervous, and plays lightly with Louis’ hair. “Don’t wanna lose it,” he says finally, and his voice is steady but Louis can feel his heart pounding in his chest.

 

Louis tips his chin up and catches Harry’s mouth in a careful kiss. “I love you,” he says reverently, letting the key drop and moving to twine his hand in Harry’s. They stay like that a moment, just curled into each other as the train leaves the station. “Even if that is the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Louis says finally, and the the woman in the seat in front hushes them as they both burst into laughter.

 

The ride to Doncaster passes fairly quickly with Harry by his side drawling on and on about nonsense. It’s kind of amazing that even with all the time they spend attached to their phones or computers these days they still haven’t run out of things to say to each other, but Louis supposes that’s how to tell when something’s made to last. By the time they’re pulling into the station in Doncaster, Louis has almost forgotten to be nervous about what comes next.

 

Harry hasn’t, though, judging by the way he starts compulsively fixing his hair every fifteen seconds as soon as the train whines to a stop. Louis reaches for his hand to stop him from scalping himself and finds it clammy and tense.

 

“Are you joking?” Louis says, only letting go of his hand to get out of their seats and grab his suitcase. “Harry. It’s my mum. She already loves you by default because I’m actually bringing someone home for once. As long as you tone down the nudity and avoid sending anyone to hospital, she’s going to adore you.”

 

“I can’t help it,” Harry says, following Louis off the train and onto the platform. “You know I’ve never met anyone’s parents before, actually.”

 

“Really?” Louis asks, looking behind him. He reaches out and grabs Harry’s hand again and leading him through the station and out to a bank of taxis. “Well, I promise to be gentle with you.”

 

When the door to his house opens, they’re greeted by an indeterminate number of screaming teenagers, one of whom launches herself at Louis and nearly knocks him over. Okay, maybe “gentle” wasn’t the best word, but Louis can’t be fussed when he’s surrounded by the people he loves the most in the world. “Get off me, you monsters!” he shouts loudly, holding tight to Harry and pulling him inside. “Help! Help! I’m being attacked!” he yells as dramatically as he can, smiling as his mum comes down the stairs.

 

“Give the boys some space,” she says, pulling the twins away from where they’ve swarmed around Harry and gathering Louis into her arms. “Missed you, love,” she says, and Louis holds her tight. “Now, who’s this, then?” she asks, turning to Harry, as if Louis hasn’t told her everything there is to know. Louis feels a sudden surge of affection for her, that she’s so determined to do this right.

 

Harry holds out his hand. “Harry Styles, ma’am,” he says. Louis’ mum shakes his hand, and Louis can tell by the smile playing around her mouth that she’s as endeared by Harry’s attempt at seriousness as he is. “Very nice to meet you. Thank you for inviting me to visit your lovely home.”

 

“I didn’t invite you, Louis did. Without my permission, I’ll add,” she says. When Harry blanches, she can’t keep from laughing. “Oh, God, I’m joking, sweetheart. How have you not got a thicker skin hanging around with my son?” she asks. “Come on in, make yourself at home.” Harry relaxes a little, relieved, and Louis loves them both so much he could sing.

 

They drop their stuff in the living room and get ushered into the kitchen, where the girls sit around the table with them and start quizzing Harry while Louis’ mum gets started on dinner. Harry makes several valiant efforts to offer help, but gets smacked away from the stove every time with a dishtowel. Instead, he sits down and holds Louis’ hand under the table and answers questions about how old he is (twenty-four) and what he does for a living (clean up after other people, mostly, right now) and if he has any younger brothers (no, sorry, just an older sister). Louis does absolutely nothing to help him, but Harry holds his own pretty well under the onslaught, and Louis can see his mum smiling in the kitchen.

 

Dinner is chaos, as per usual, fourteen arms trying to reach across for the salt or pass the salad, and Louis thinks it must be strange for Harry, who grew up with one older sister in a much larger house. He seems to be enjoying himself, though, having lost some of his nervous stiffness from earlier, and Louis thinks having the distraction of half a footie team’s worth of teenage girls probably helps.

 

When they finish the food, Harry insists on doing the washing up, which means Louis has to get up and help him. “Can you not make me look quite so bad?” he whispers, elbowing Harry hard in the side at the sink. “My mum’s going to trade me in exchange for you if you don’t watch it.”

 

Harry laughs and flicks water at him, but of course it’s only when Louis retaliates that his mum shouts, “Louis, behave yourself,” from the other room. Typical.

 

After that they move to the living room for family game night, which Louis fondly remembers hating all through his adolescence. It’s fun now, though, especially watching Lottie sulk and check her phone every time their mum’s looking the other way. They split up into teams for Pictionary, and Harry and Louis hold their own for quite some time, but Louis is 100% sure that Harry throws the game when the twins have a chance to beat them. It’s not like they don’t have enough advantages already, with their freaky twin bond thing.

 

Still, it’s cute, and a good way to end the night, and Louis is fantasising about giving Harry a thank-you blowjob when his mum speaks up. “So,” she says, ushering the girls upstairs to get ready for bed. “I was thinking Harry could take the downstairs sofa, and Lou, you can sleep in the TV room.”

 

The two of them exchange looks. Louis had figured it’d be hard for them to get any alone time, but not getting to at least share a bed with Harry their first night together in weeks is not going to be fun. Harry, though, ever eager to please, shoots Louis a quieting look and says, “Fine by me! Do you think I could borrow some sheets?” Louis is going to give him a noogie for being a suck-up the second he gets him alone.

 

He does exactly that when they’re brushing their teeth in the bathroom, and then gives him a minty kiss. “I’ll see you in the morning,” Harry says, giving him a squeeze on the arse, and Louis watches him go down the stairs before he moves to the TV room.

 

Nestled in amongst the pillows, he stares at the ceiling, tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable. He sleeps alone every night at home, but this is different. He can practically feel Harry downstairs, that same sort of itchy feeling he gets in the back of his mind when he knows someone’s watching him. He grabs his phone from where it’s charging on the floor. He doesn’t want to text Harry, doesn’t want to make things worse for him, so he pulls up Stan’s number.

 

seeing hazza for the first time in weeks and have to sleep apart bc we’re at mums. this blows. feel bad for me x

 

A few minutes later, the phone buzzes back.

 

go the fuck to sleep lou xx

 

Louis snorts, and then tries to follow Stan’s advice. It’s hard, though, and he feels the lack of Harry in his arms like a phantom limb. He’s about to start literally counting sheep when he hears the creak of footsteps on the stairs. Harry’s head appears above the banister, hair rumpled from being in bed, and he has a sheepish expression on his face. “Couldn’t sleep,” he whispers. “Don’t want to break the rules, but…” he trails off, shrugging.

 

“What kind of girl do you think I am?” Louis whispers back, grinning, and starts budging over to make room for him. Harry tries to squeeze in next to him on the sofa, but between Louis’ ridiculous arse and Harry’s ridiculous legs they can’t get comfortable. “Fuck this,” Louis says, and starts shoving all the pillows off the sofa. They go to sleep like that, curled up in a pile of cushions and blankets on the floor, and Louis wakes up with a crick in his neck but feels more well-rested than he has in a long time.

 

Harry’s blinking awake at the same time. “Morning,” Louis says, tugging on an errant curl, and Harry smiles at him sleepily. They go through their morning routines in the upstairs bathroom, and Louis can’t put into words how much he enjoys watching Harry shave next to him while he washes his face. It’s good. It’s really good.

 

Downstairs, there’s the sound of the front door opening, and Louis hears his mum’s voice say, “What are you doing in my garden this early in the morning, Stan?”

 

“Morning, Ms. T!” says Stan, who, Louis confirms with a glance over the bannister, is in his house. What the hell. Harry looks to him for an explanation, but Louis hasn’t got one. “Smells amazing in here, simply fantastic. Are those pancakes?”

 

“Yes, they are, and if you’re looking for Louis, he—” his Mum stops short when she sees Louis coming down the stairs with Harry in tow. She’s standing at the kitchen counter next to the stove with a spatula, and she puts a hand on her hip when Louis offers her a small wave. “Well, look who didn’t sleep on separate sofas after all.”

 

“Sorry, mum,” Louis says, and behind him Harry mumbles a sheepish apology of his own, but she’s smiling at them like she thinks it’s cute, so Louis figures they’ll get away with this one.

 

“Morning, Lou!” Stan says, sounding altogether too cheerful. Suspicious. “Morning, Harry! Why aren’t you two dressed yet?”

 

“What?” Louis asks. Stan gives him a face that Louis’ seen millions of times in their long history of mischief-making, usually accompanied with an elbow in his ribs to remind him to go along with the story.

 

“Yes, what?” Louis’ mum echoes.

 

“Oh, Louis wanted me to take Harry and him out for breakfast. Bonding and all that rot,” he tells her.

 

Harry mouths what? at him, and Louis mouths back who fucking knows?

 

“All right,” Louis’ mum says after a moment of consideration. “Just have them back by lunchtime.”

 

“Will do, Ms. T,” Stan says. He turns back to Harry and Louis. “You lads should go put on some proper trousers if you expect me to be seen in public with you.”

 

Louis has no fucking clue what he’s on about, but it’s Stan, so he figures there’s a plan of some sort that he’s not privy to yet. He pulls Harry back upstairs and they change quickly, meeting Stan down by the front door and following him outside.

 

“The fuck are you doing, Stan?” Louis asks as soon as the front door is shut behind him.

 

“Shut up and get in the car,” Stan says, unlocking the car and ignoring the question completely. “You’ll thank me later.”

 

Louis rolls his eyes but complies, sliding into the backseat next to Harry while Stan starts the car.

 

“Hello, Harry,” Stan says, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror.

 

“Hello, Stan,” Harry replies.

 

Stan puts the car in drive but doesn’t let his foot off the brake just yet. Instead he holds Harry’s eyes in the mirror and says, quite casually, “Bugger off like that again and I’ll put you in the ground.”

 

Harry nods. “Duly noted.”

 

“Cheers,” Stan says, and he pulls away from the curb.

 

“If you’re done threatening my boyfriend,” Louis says, “would you mind telling me where the hell you’re taking us?”

 

“It’s a surprise,” Stan says, and Louis groans, but he knows Stan and he knows that’s all he’s going to get out of him until he’s ready to say more. He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive except to comment on the weather or the traffic, until finally they pull into a carpark in front of a block of flats and Stan stops the car.

 

He reaches down and removes a key from his keyring, then turns around and holds it out to Louis.

 

“I hope you realise that I am the best friend on the entire fucking planet right now,” Stan says.

 

“Stan, what the fuck are you on about?” Louis says.

 

Stan shoves the key into his hand. “Number 102. It’s my flat.”

 

“What—”

 

“I’ll be back in three hours,” Stan says. “Wash the fucking sheets, you animals.”

 

Louis stares at him. “You’ve got to be joking. We can’t—”

 

“Sure we can, Lou,” Harry says, already opening his door and jumping out of the car like he’s on fire, and Louis gets one last fleeting glimpse of Stan winking at him before he’s yanked bodily out into the carpark. Harry ducks his head back in to thank Stan, and then he shuts the door behind him and Stan pulls away.

 

Louis tries to argue, because it feels like he should, but if he’s honest his heart really isn’t in it, and mostly he just wants to have sex with Harry again, whatever that takes.

 

So they find Stan’s flat together, and Louis lets them in. Stan lives alone, and his flat has actually been cleaned to some extent, which is almost as big of a gesture as Stan offering them his flat in the first place. There’s a brand new bottle of lube waiting on the bedside table. It’s got a bow on it. Louis does not know what he did to deserve the people in his life.

 

Harry just laughs and pulls Louis down with him, and they spend two very athletic hours in Stan’s bed making up for the month and a half they’ve spent apart. Louis doesn’t expect either of them to be able to last long at first since they’ve both been holding out for so long, but neither of them wants to come first and they’re both competitive enough that it keeps them going. It’s thorough, and it’s loud, and it’s good, and Louis gets a fistful of Harry’s hair and gives him something to remember when he goes back to London.

 

After the second round and a brief spell of lying comatose on Harry’s chest, Louis forces himself out of bed and pulls his boxers back on, making a mental note to buy Stan something huge and expensive for his birthday this year. He manages to sweet talk Harry into getting up so he can pull the sheets off the bed and put them in the washing machine as requested. Once he’s set the cycle and shut the lid, he wanders out into the flat and finds Harry in the kitchen wearing nothing but his pants. He’s found the assortment of photos stuck up on Stan’s fridge with alphabet letters spelling out obscene words, and he’s laughing to himself at the awful, ridiculous pictures of Louis when he was a teenager. Louis smacks him on the arse for that, and Harry chases him through the flat, and they rather defeat the point of washing the sheets when Harry picks him up and puts him on top of the washer and then sucks him off right there in the middle of the rinse cycle. He doesn’t plan on telling Stan about that one.

 

At the end of the three hours, Stan drives them back to Louis’ house, making a big show of his martyrdom. “I’m going to bleach everything the second I get home,” he says as he comes to a stop. “Everything.”

 

Harry leans forward into the front and gives Stan a smacking kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best, Stan,” he says, and Louis howls with laughter.

 

“And now I have to bleach my face, thanks for that,” Stan says. “Lou, I’ll see you at Christmas, yeah?” Louis nods, reaching out to ruffle Stan’s hair. “You too, right?” he continues, meeting Harry’s eyes in the rearview.

 

Harry nods seriously, and then opens to door to exit the car. Louis lingers a moment. “You are the best, you know that?” he says.

 

“I’m aware,” Stan says. “Now get out of my car,” he says with a smile.

 

“Love you too,” Louis grins, and then follows Harry out, waving as Stan pulls away and drives off. They walk hand-in-hand back into the house, but Harry immediately gets commandeered by the twins. Louis is pretty sure they’re in love with him, or at least they’ve imprinted on him like ducklings, and the thought fills him with immense satisfaction.

 

Louis goes to make tea for his mum in the kitchen, and eavesdrops on their conversation. They’ve got him reading one of their magazines, taking some quiz about who their respective boyband soulmates are. Harry, bless him, seems to be taking it immensely seriously, interrogating each of them over their answers. Does Phoebe really like a guy who’s funny more than a guy who’s nice? How sure is Daisy that she’d rather spend time alone than in a big group?

 

Louis’ mum comes up behind him at the kettle, clearly also listening in. She hugs him from behind, and Louis leans into it as he takes two teacups out of the cabinet. “He seems like he’s good for you,” she says softly.

 

“He is,” Louis says, taking the kettle off the burner as it starts to whistle. His mum goes to grab teabags, which she puts in the cups before he pours in the water. “I think I’m good for him, too.”

 

His mum smiles, leaning against the counter. “Well,” she says, eyes only a little watery, “Anyone who makes you say that is welcome here anytime he likes.”

 

Louis smiles back, handing her a steaming cup. “Don’t tell him, will you? Watching him be terrified of you is hilarious.” They clink their cups together. “Want to go watch telly?” Louis asks, because some things don’t change.

 

“Love to,” she replies, and they walk upstairs together. Harry seems perfectly happy where he is, and Louis notes as he walks by that Daisy has started braiding part of his hair.

 

Part of him feels like he should be taking advantage of the little time he has with Harry, but he’s missed his mum too, and he doesn’t have the heart to break up the bonding session happening in the living room. It’s good, he thinks, to give Harry some time alone with his family, because he hopes this is just the beginning of a very, very long arrangement.

 

He spends half the afternoon with his mum, curled up in her bed, and he thinks this might be as close to heaven as he’ll ever get. “You deserve this, you know that, right?” his mum says at some point, and all Louis can do is nod around the lump that forms suddenly in his throat. How do mums do that?

 

When they go back downstairs to make sure everyone’s ready to go out for dinner, Harry is in the kitchen undoing the braid. “You survive okay?” Louis asks, and Harry nods.

 

“Yeah, they’re nice girls.” He makes an unhappy face. “I don’t know about those magazines they read, though. They’re very—I don’t know, what if your sisters wanted a celebrity girlfriend instead of a boyfriend?”

 

Louis goes up on his toes to kiss Harry on the cheek. “You’re ridiculous. Also, my sisters will never date anyone because they will be children forever. Are you packed up? We’re going straight to the station from dinner.” Harry nods, and Louis goes to make sure that all his own stuff is shoved back into his suitcase before he pulls Harry into the downstairs toilet.

 

“What are you—“ Harry gets out before Louis drags him down into a kiss. There’s only so heated things can get in a tiny room containing a toilet, but they still make a go of it, Louis’ hands under Harry’s shirt and Harry’s hands in Louis’ hair. They break away after a minute, panting, and only the fact that they wore each other out earlier in the day is keeping Louis from trying for more. “What was that for?“ Harry tries again.

 

“For making my mum happy,” Louis says, smoothing out the collar of Harry’s shirt.

 

“Okay, weird,” Harry says, quirking an eyebrow at him. “But I’ll take it.”

 

Louis pulls him out of the bathroom with a snort, and they grab their bags from the living room and take them out to the minivan. The girls and Louis’ mum are already outside, so once the suitcases are in the back they all pile in. Lottie sits on Louis’ lap under much protest, and the twins are a bit smushed, but they all manage to sort-of fit. They make their way to the restaurant, the same Italian place that Louis’ family has been going to for years, and sit down at a long table, sharing pasta and breadsticks and dessert. It’s the perfect way to end the weekend, the chatter of his family and the taste of chocolate and Harry’s soft eyes across the table. He and Harry split the bill, and that feels good, too, doing something nice for his family with the person he loves.

 

They pile back into the van, and Louis catches his mum’s eyes in the rearview and gives her a grin. She drives them to the train station, where they all clamber back out again, and Harry gets the bags out of the boot. Louis gets a hug from all his girls at once, and Harry looks amazed when he gets one too. “My brother is a bit shite, but you’re cool, so put up with him, yeah?” Lottie says, smirking at Louis.

 

“I’ll try,” Harry says seriously, and then grins up at Louis too, who sticks his tongue out at them both. Harry looks even more stunned, though, when Louis’ mum pulls him into her arms as well.

 

She says it quietly, but Louis can still hear her soft, “Thank you,” and has to stare at the ground and scuff his feet to keep from either blushing or crying or throwing himself at them both.

 

He hears Harry murmur back, “Thank you,” and that’s it, this has to be over now or else he’s going to make a fool of himself.

 

“All right!” he chirps brightly. “Time to go. Love you all,” he says, hugging his mum tightly. “Be good. I’ll be home for Christmas.”

 

They wave goodbye as Louis and Harry head into the station. They’re catching different trains, Harry back to London and Louis home to Manchester, but they have a few minutes before they have to part ways.

 

“So that was... a lot.” Harry says once they get inside. Louis laughs and nods, squeezing Harry’s hand in his.

 

“You were perfect,” Louis says. “They’re all in love with you. Mum wants you to come for Christmas.”

 

Harry grins and blushes, ducking his head. “Can I tell you something?” he says, and Louis nods. “There’s a job opening. In Manchester. Some local magazine needs a photographer. They’re pretty small, but they do really cool stuff and they’ve got a great reputation. I sent my application in on Thursday. I haven’t heard back yet, but one of my old professors knows the editor, and he said he’d put in a word for me, so there’s a strong chance that you’ll be spending Christmas hols helping me prep for a job interview.” He grins. “I assume I can crash at yours?”

 

“Hazza, that’s amazing,” Louis says, kissing him quickly on the lips. “That’s—that’s really, really good. And of course you’ll stay at mine, you tit.” He pauses, searching Harry’s face for a moment. “And you know that—if you end up needing somewhere to stay that’s more, you know, long-term…” he trails off, waiting for Harry to catch on. He does, and he grins, and Louis grins back because he’s been wanting to ask him this for a while now, but he’s never quite known when was the right time. It’s a big step, but Harry’s looking at him like it’s the easiest decision he’s ever made.

 

“That’s my plan, if you’ll have me,” Harry says.

 

“Of course I’ll have you, you shit, like I’d let you waste money on rent for a separate flat,” Louis says, laughing. He wraps his hand around the spare key that’s still hanging around Harry’s neck and pulls him into a kiss that’s just this side of too heated for a public place.

 

They pull apart reluctantly, as the track number for Harry’s train comes over the intercom. “Four more weeks,” Harry breathes.

 

“Four more weeks,” Louis says back, tucking the key back under the collar of Harry’s shirt. “I love you. Call me when you get home?”

 

Harry ducks to kiss him one more time. “I love you too. And I won't be home, but yeah, I'll call.” And then he goes, heading to the platform. He only looks back at Louis twice, and Louis admires his restraint.

 

Then he’s out of sight, and Louis can feel the absence settling into his bones, but it’s all right. They’re going to be fine. Four more weeks.

 

 

 

**Chapter 25.**

“Does it look even?” Louis says, perched on top of a ladder and lifting the string of lights higher into the corner.  
  
“I can’t tell. What do you think?”  
  
Louis rolls his eyes and cranes his neck around. “I can’t tell, can I, since I’m trying to put them up. Come on, make an effort here, it’s your party, too.”  
  
“This is not my party. Do not even pretend that any of this is about me.”  
  
“Well, it’s your flat, too, anyway,” Louis says, giving up and pinning the lights in place where they are. He spins around, hands on his hips, and fixes Harry with a glare. “You’re no help at all.”  
  
“Excuse me,” Harry says, moving forward to lift Louis off the ladder and put him down on the ground. “Who’s handling all of the refreshments, again? I am the most helpful.”  
  
Louis sighs, stepping back from the ladder to survey the lights. They are not, in fact, even, but only by a few inches, and Louis figures that nobody but him will notice. He finds he doesn’t mind altogether that much, possibly because these particular lights are straight out of the last of Harry’s boxes, the same blinking, multi-coloured lights from his old flat. Louis likes the way they look around the ceiling of his living room, crooked and cheerful. He likes it a lot, actually. He may leave them up for a while.   
  
Not that he’s done giving Harry shit, though.   
  
“You’re lucky the theme of the decorations this year leaves room for imperfection,” Louis says, poking Harry in the nose. “Can you get the rest of the lights? You’re taller.”  
  
“You just want to ogle my arse while I’m not looking,” Harry teases.  
  
“Got it in one, love,” Louis says with a wink.  
  
Harry grins and then turns around, making a show of pretending to be put-upon. “Anything for the birthday boy, I suppose.”  
  
As Harry climbs back up the ladder, Louis can’t help but stand back and watch, not just the way he looks in those jeans—though that’s very nice as well—but the way he looks in Louis’ flat. In _their_ flat. He only moved in a week ago, fresh off his internship and ready to start his new job in Manchester in January, but he’s already changing things in noticeable ways.  
  
For one, there are all sorts of fancy new cooking gadgets in the kitchen that Louis doesn’t know how to use and—after a mishap with a dessert torch that ends with him setting his own jumper on fire and which Zayn will never, ever hear about—is not allowed to touch without supervision. The bathroom counter is twice as cluttered as it used to be. The bed is much warmer. It’s nice, everything that’s changed, but it’s still a lot.  
  
Louis likes it, the way that they're intermingling their lives, but he won’t say it’s always easy. He’s growing, and he’s changing, but he can’t pretend he doesn’t still have moments of _oh God what am I doing_ when he takes stock of all the ways he’s given up space in his life and his head and his heart to make room for Harry. The night he first moved in Louis had to take a walk by himself, to roam around a few streets alone and talk himself down before he could come back inside to a place that was no longer his and his alone. But Harry let him do it, and understood, and didn’t push. Standing in their living room, watching Harry nearly tip off the ladder as he strains to put up lights for Louis, he doesn’t feel even a hint of regret.  
  
So it’s good, and he’s happy, and sometimes he loves Harry so much he can't breathe, but that's a lot better than the things that used to smother him. There’s a box or two in Louis room that still need to be unpacked, but for the most part, all the little pieces of Harry’s life have been integrated into the flat. They sorted through Harry’s bits and bobs and mixed them in with all of Louis’ bits and bobs, Harry’s little wooden Buddha statue next to Louis’ programmes on the bookshelf, Harry’s Gandalf bobblehead standing sentry in front of every season of _One Tree Hill_ on DVD. Louis had Harry help him pick out their favourites of Harry’s photos and then got them framed as an early Christmas gift, and Harry took over arranging them on the walls all over the flat since he’s the one with the eye for composition. They work well together, Louis thinks. And he has to admit, birthday sex is even better when it’s also still-can’t-believe-I-get-to-have-you-here-all-the-time sex. They've rechristened every room in the flat, and most of the flat surfaces, too, just to be sure.  
  
For the first time ever, he’s got a co-host for his annual Christmas-meets-birthday extravaganza, and perhaps Harry is not quite the socialite that Louis is, but he’s surprisingly good at party planning. Even when he was still in London, Harry was calling bakeries and comparing Yelp reviews on different caterers and texting Louis ideas for themes full of exclamation marks in the middle of the day. It’s a good thing, because Louis may not have attempted a production this term, but he did manage to land the lead in the modern retelling of _A Christmas Carol_ his community theatre decided to put on,and their run only ended a couple of days ago. He could have managed it on his own, but he would have enjoyed it a lot less.  
  
The whole cast of the show is invited tonight, and Louis can admit that he’s nervous. He wants these people to like him, wants to keep them in his life after the show’s done. Now that he’s branching out more he’s realizing how much he’s missed being social outside of work. Niall and Zayn and Liam and Harry and Stan obviously will always be top of the list, but he needs to be more generous. The rest of the world deserves its share of Louis Tomlinson too.  
  
Once they’ve finished with the lights, they move on to finishing up the rest of the flat. All the furniture is shoved and stacked into their bedroom to leave the rest of the apartment open for dancing, and they tack little branches of mistletoe over every doorway in the flat. That part leads to a bit of distraction, but Harry is determined to prove his worth as a party planner, so he calls a mistletoe moratorium until they're done setting up the refreshments. Duchess perches on the top of the refrigerator and yowls periodically, eyeing Louis like she knows what he’s got in mind and will be damned if she’ll allow it to come to pass. It’s no use. The dress code this year mandates something that lights up, and Louis is getting that blinking LED collar on her if he has to sacrifice an arm.  
  
He does eventually manage to get the collar on Duchess after he and Harry have taken care of all the last-minute things, and then it’s time for them to get themselves dressed. It’s become sort of his favorite thing since that time in London, watching Harry get dressed, and Harry catches him smiling at him as he straightens his light-up bowtie in the mirror. He pulls Louis in by his braces—covered in little lights to match—and gives him a smiling kiss that tastes like the cookies he’s been sneaking. What can he say? Thematic apparel is his greatest weakness.  
  
Once again, Niall is the first to arrive to the party. He’s DJing again, and this year Louis’ party is quite the hot ticket, since he promised house music by The Craic on the invitations. He comes at both Harry and Louis with a flying tackle as soon as he’s through the door, shouting in their ears, and Louis thinks that if anybody in the world is happier about him getting back together with Harry than he is, it’s Niall. Once he’s given them each a huge sloppy kiss he’s off to work setting up his equipment, the bottoms of his high-tops flashing different colours with every step.   
  
Zayn and Liam show up next, Zayn with his arms covered in glowstick bracelets and Liam sporting a blinking jumper that plays “Frosty the Snowman” tinnily if you press a button. They’ve been over a few times recently, usually bringing Bo over to try to get her socialised. Duchess has gotten great amusement from lurking in high spots and then leaping down on Bo from above, and thankfully, so far Bo has just decided that Duchess is her new favorite playmate, following her all over the flat. This time, though, Zayn and Liam show up without their furry dependent.   
  
Zayn immediately goes over to badger Niall about music selections as Niall slaps his hands away from the turntable, and Liam starts quizzing Louis about if they have enough cups and does he need any help and is he _sure_ having this many lights plugged into one outlet isn’t going to blow a circuit breaker.  
  
“As if that could stop us,” Louis says, and flicks the light switch to plunge the flat into darkness before plugging in the lights. Suddenly the room is blinking and flashing and glittering like the world's most festive nightclub, lights of every colour playing over their faces.  
  
“Sick,” Niall says, and then pulls on his earphones.  
  
Once the clock strikes eight, the revelers start pouring in through the front door, bottles of alcohol and cases of beer and a thousand blinking lights in tow. Everyone has a hug and a congratulatory shout for him as soon as they arrive, and many of them greet Harry the same way, bless them. Stan’s got on a top hat and matching jacket lined with lights when he arrives, and he hugs Louis so hard Louis thinks me might have a couple of bruised ribs.  
  
Most of the cast and even some of the crew from his community theatre turn up, as well as a large portion of the faculty from school and the Doncaster crowd, plus some new additions—a few of Liam’s mates from the firehouse, a random assortment of artsy types Harry befriended at uni, Zayn's editor. Louis loses track at some point after his third drink, but he’s sure he can’t have possibly sent this many invitations.  
  
Before long people are overflowing onto the balcony and out the front door, all the way down the stairs. Niall has to turn up his music—”electrochristmaspophouse,” he calls it—even louder for everyone to be able to hear it, which the neighbours probably won’t find particularly pleasing. Thankfully, Liam, the patron saint of affability and crisis management, has friends on the police force, so they’ve got noise complaint insurance. Louis suspects that Liam would personally go door to door to placate each and every one of his neighbours with Christmas cookies and polite conversation if it came down to it.   
  
He’s not worried. He’s tipsy and Harry’s warm against his side and everyone he loves except for five beautiful girls back home are right here in one place, all for him. He’s not worried about anything at all.   
  
Of course there’s a cake, since Harry had a hand in the planning of the party, and of course it’s ridiculous. It’s not baked by Harry this time, but it is red velvet and delicious, with his name written on top. Everyone sings him happy birthday, but he can’t think of a single thing to wish for when he blows out the candles, and he’d blame the alcohol if he didn’t know better. Instead, he just thinks _thank you_ , and extinguishes them all in one breath. Twenty-seven. He’s okay with that.  
  
After that things get a little blurry and a lot sloppy, as things are wont to do when you put a large group of the kind of people who fall into Louis’ usual orbit in one space with alcohol and a lot of sentimentality. The later it gets and the more the booze flows, the more the sense of holiday giddiness devolves into something else, something louder and looser and a lot less inhibited. Suffice it to say, the mistletoe has done its job. Perhaps a little too well. There’s snogging, and screaming, and one of the lads from theatre is performing a striptease on his kitchen table. Louis just holds his drink up in the air and lets the crowd carry him along, accepting kisses on his cheeks and slaps on his bum. Harry’s in and out of his arms all night, letting him enjoy the attention, and Louis loves him for that like he loves him for everything else.   
  
The karaoke machine from last year is back, and Louis watches on happily when Harry takes his turn, starting in on “All I Want for Christmas is You.” His happiness turns to a pleased sort of panic, though, when Harry abandons the microphone and grabs him, pulling him in front of the cheering crowd. They duet their way through the rest of it, laughing too much to reach half of the notes, but it’s a hit anyway. They’ve probably embarrassed themselves, but people are applauding, so Louis finds he doesn’t care much. The way Harry looks at him afterwards isn’t half bad either, all hot eyes and fingers curling into the back of his shirt.  
  
The party rages on, a blur of noise and colour and lights and people making extremely merry, and Louis hopes that somewhere amidst the mess Harry is getting some quality photographs of this. Stan is wandering around the dance floor, shouting, “Ho, ho, ho, Happy Christmas!” and pouring vodka into people’s mouths while Niall splices together Ke$ha’s latest single with “Little Drummer Boy,” and Louis can feel the bassline in his brain. One of Liam’s fireman mates has taken off his shirt and is allowing anyone who wants to take shots off of his abs, and from the sounds of it one of the theater girls is trying to persuade him to try out for Rocky the next time they put on _Rocky Horror._ At one point he walks in on Zayn and Liam going at it in the bathroom, Liam pushed up against the sink with one leg hooked around Zayn’s and Zayn’s hands under his shirt.  
  
“Get a room,” Louis slurs, before thinking things through. “A different room. But not our room. No. Don’t get a room.” He closes the door behind him and wanders back to find Niall in a dance-off with the stage manager for _A Christmas Carol_. She’s very pretty. Louis files this away for future reference before he’s swallowed up by a group of girls he knew back in uni and loses track of what he was doing.  
  
Maybe it’s midnight or maybe it’s three in the morning when he stumbles out of a gap in the crowd, wobbling on his feet and dodging a spilled drink from that nice girl from something or other. He hasn’t seen Harry for a bit, and he blinks around him now, willing himself to see straight as he scans the edges of the room.  
  
He finds Harry finally, leaning against a wall with a beer in his hand and his bowtie blinking in time to the music. He’s got one arm slung over Stan’s shoulders and his camera around his neck, and the lights turn his hair green and blue and red in turn. He looks right at home. He _is_ home, and when he meets Louis’ eyes across the room, he smiles and raises his beer to him in a silent toast.   
  
Louis lifts his own cup in return, and there’s a moment, a moment he couldn’t explain even if he were sober, when there’s nobody in the room but the two of them, and Louis can’t help himself.  
  
“I love you!” he shouts, trying to be heard above the music, but Harry just furrows his brow.  
  
“What?” he shouts back, and Louis can barely hear him.  
  
He digs up all his theatre experience, every time he’s ever been told by a director to project. He steels his diaphragm, cups his hand around his mouth, and when he yells, “I _love_ you!” half the party turns to look at him. He knows Harry hears because of the way he smiles, broad and reckless. A dozen people are still watching them. It doesn’t matter a bit. He hopes everyone heard.  
  
“I love you, too!” Harry yells back.  
  
“I know!” Louis shouts. He does.  
  
That’s all he needs, really. Christmas and his birthday and the party, they’re all wonderful, and he wouldn’t trade all this for anything, but this is it. He’s loved, and he knows it, and he knows he deserves it, and that’s everything. That's more than he could have imagined.  
  
The party doesn’t go on much longer after that, everyone too burnt out to make it last all night. People leave in ones and twos, and then in groups, piling into cars and taxis and leaving liquor-sticky kisses on Louis’ cheeks before they go. His flat empties out, feeling somehow smaller with fewer and fewer people inside, until finally it’s just the five of them left.  
  
Niall cuts the music, shaking the sweat out of his hair, and he flops down on the carpet next to a mysterious brown stain that Louis does not look forward to trying to shampoo out. He fits right in with the rest of the flat, which is covered in bottles and cups and plates and debris, all the wreckage of a great night. The lights still twinkle merrily, illuminating their faces in a way that seems less intense and more intimate now that it’s just them left. Louis hasn’t the faintest clue what time it is, but he doesn’t much care to find out.   
  
“Another one for the books, I’d say,” Harry says, wrapping his arms around Louis from behind. Louis sags back into him, letting Harry support his weight, and tries not to let them slip on the floor where the slush from dozens of pairs of boots has melted as they drift back into the living room.   
  
“I think some of those people must have been some kind of transient party nomads who just wander into people’s homes to eat their food,” Louis says. “There’s no way we know that many people.”  
  
“You were right to let them in,” Liam says through a yawn, poking around Niall’s equipment. “S’what Jesus would do. Christmas. Room at the inn.” Zayn snorts from where he’s sprawled out nearby, back propped up against the wall.   
  
“S’pose you’re right,” Louis agrees sleepily. He leans into Harry’s shoulder, looking down fondly at where their knees touch. “Nah, I’m glad everyone came. It was a good night.”  
  
Niall rolls onto his stomach and puts his chin on his arms, smiling a tired little smile at him. “Happy birthday, Lou.”  
  
“Happy birthday,” Zayn echoes, and Liam and Harry do the same.  
  
“Happy Christmas,” he says back, and Liam gives him a crinkled smile from where he’s sat down behind Niall’s keyboard. He plinks a little at the keys before finding a melody, and starts humming something idly.  
  
“Sing it properly,” Louis says, because it’s his birthday and he’s allowed to ask for things. Liam rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, but puts his fingers back to the keys more seriously and starts to sing.  
  
“ _Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light,”_ he sings out softly, and then Zayn joins him, their voices curling around each other. _“From now on our troubles will be out of sight.”_  
  
Niall joins in from the floor, his clear, bell-like tone arching over the others’. “ _Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Yuletide gay,_ ” and Niall snickers at that last bit before Louis kicks out and catches him in the shin. “ _From now on our troubles will be miles away_.” Harry is swaying them back and forth slowly, and Louis lets himself sink into his arms and the song.  
  
He feels Harry’s chest expand a little against him, and when he joins in for the next bit, Louis can feel that low rasp of his buzzing through his own chest. _“Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore.”_  
  
Zayn pokes Louis in the leg with the toe of his boot, and when Louis glances over, Zayn’s got his lighter out and is goofily waving it along as they sing, _“Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us once more.”_  
  
Louis takes a deep breath and joins in on the last verse. “ _Someday soon, we all will be together, if the Fates allow._ ” He’d been enjoying just listening to them, but actually? It sounds better with him in the mix too. “ _Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow,_ ” and he tips his head back to lean against Harry’s shoulder. _“So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.”_  
  
The last notes linger in the air, and Louis looks down at his friends. His best friends.  
  
“I love you all,” he says, and they smile back at him. “Now get out of my flat.”  
  
Liam responds by playing a deliberately off-key rendition of the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.   
  
Louis expects it to be harder to get rid of them considering how tired they all are, but Liam insists that they need to get home to take Bo out, so Zayn has no choice but to let himself be hauled up off of the floor. Out of the three of them, Liam is the only one who’s in a state to drive, so he and Zayn agree to drop Niall off at his flat on their way home, and Louis tells Niall he can just come back for his equipment after Christmas. They all hug Harry and Louis goodnight in turn, muttering one last round of “happy birthday” and “happy Christmas,” and then Louis shuts the door behind them and locks the deadbolt.   
  
Harry walks over to the outlet and starts pulling out plugs until all the blinking lights have gone off, and the two of them are alone in the dark. “D’you want the normal light on?” he asks, picking his way back through the wreckage to Louis.  
  
“God, no,” Louis says. “I don’t want to know what it is we’re going to have to clean up.”  
  
“Should we—” Harry starts, but Louis just tugs him toward the bedroom.  
  
“Absolutely not. Bed,” he says, and maybe he’ll regret it tomorrow, but right now the only thing he wants is to fall asleep with his boy.   
  
When they wake up, Louis will make them both peppermint tea, and they’ll sit down in front of their lopsided tree in the middle of the mess and spend Christmas morning just the two of them, opening the presents they got for each other before they have to drive to Doncaster for dinner. He imagines at some point he’ll pop into the kitchen and come back to find Harry sitting cross-legged in a heap of wrapping paper, probably with a bow stuck to his head and Duchess in his lap, and he’ll go back into their bedroom and steal Harry’s camera to take a picture. They’ll put it up on the wall in the living room, the one that shares his bedroom door, the one that’s just for pictures of the two of them.   
  
But before that, they're going to sleep. They clamber over the sofa that’s still pushed into their bedroom doorway and dodge end tables in the dark to finally get inside. Silently, they leave their clothes on the floor and slide into bed, curling into each another. Harry kisses Louis lightly and then rests his head on his chest. “Your mum’s tomorrow,” he says, voice already thick with sleep and the promise of a hangover.  
  
“And your parents’ the day after that,” Louis reminds him. They’ll be driving to Holmes Chapel for Boxing Day, since Harry wants to see his family too. Louis hasn’t met them yet, but his hopes are high. He has secret plans for a joint Christmas dinner next year, assuming he can get his mum on board.   
  
“You nervous?” Harry asks, his lips moving against Louis’ chest.  
  
“Nah,” Louis says, carding his hand through Harry’s hair. “They’re gonna love me.”  
  
Harry hums happily. “I love you,” he murmurs.  
  
“I love you, too,” Louis replies.  
  
Harry glances up at him with a grin before his eyes flutter closed. “I know,” he says.  
  
Louis smiles. He does.


End file.
